Programme News
12 March 2015
(News)
In a precedent-setting case, the Pretoria High Court has given asylum seekers the right to challenge a fine imposed on them.
The court yesterday heard an urgent application by Janvier Mutoshiwa, an asylum seeker from the Democratic Republic of Congo, who with the help of Lawyers for Human Rights (LHR) asked the court to compel the Department of Home Affairs to allow him to contest his fine.
Up...
12 March 2015
(Press release)
Lawyers for Human Rights appeared in the North Gauteng High Court on Wednesday on behalf of a number of separated minors to deal with access to education and documentation for this vulnerable group.
An interim order was granted in 2013 guaranteeing asylum seeker and refugee children access to education. The second part of the case was aimed at developing a path to documentation by recognising...
6 March 2015
(News)
The International Organisation for Migration (IOM), the South African NGO Lawyers for Human Rights (LHR) and the Mozambican Mine Workers Association (AMIMO) are working together to find sustainable solutions for migrant mineworkers and their families to access the social security benefits they are entitled, including healthcare, pension schemes and worker compensation.
There are a range of...
5 March 2015
(News)
This week Urban Joburg and CityAfrika hosted an open discussion on the City of Johannesburg’s Operation KeMalao ‘It’s the law’. The by-law enforcement operation triggered by the City’s Public Safety office targets all traders and beggars operating at traffic intersections.
Ke Molao follows on from the department’s previously notorious operation Clean Sweep,...
5 March 2015
(News)
Lawyers for Human Rights have urged the National Department of Health to ensure that staff at all hospitals are properly trained on the law around foreign nationals who need treatment in South Africa.
It’s made the appeal after officials at the Tambo Memorial Hospital in Boksburg turned away a woman in need of urgent medical care, allegedly because she's a foreigner.
Eyewitness News...
4 March 2015
(News)
Small Business Development Minister Lindiwe Zulu has condemned an instruction to foreigners by the SA Civic Organisation (Sanco) to leave Snake Park in Soweto.
Sanco has reportedly sent a letter to residents saying foreign-owned shops will be closed. But Zulu says Sanco has not right to instruct foreigners to leave.
The minister confirms that her office is engaging with the community, adding that...
27 February 2015
(News)
Two important decisions just delivered by courts at opposite ends of South Africa illustrate some of the serious difficulties experienced by refugees and the often “deplorable” way they are treated by officials.
Last week, Abdul Akanakimana, who fled Burundi in 2008 after his family was murdered by rebels, was finally officially given asylum. But it was granted only when the high...
25 February 2015
(Press release)
In the wake of worrying reports this morning on Eyewitness News that a heavily pregnant Zimbabwean woman was supposedly denied medical assistance unless she paid R10 000 and alleged statements by the Department of Health that “all foreigners should be treated as private patients”, LHR would like to clarify the legal provisions regarding access to health care for foreign nationals....
24 February 2015
(News)
“The back of a police van is the only place that feels like home.”
This is the plight of a young man, Singejeje Adel, who has no family and no country that regards him as theirs. He is stateless.
Adel, 23, was born in a refugee camp in Tanzania in 1992 and has never been recognised as a citizen of any country. His mother, his only known relative, died when he was 10 and left him with...
17 February 2015
(News)
Nelisiwe Mathe does not have a South African ID and her one-year-old baby cannot get a birth-certificate, so, as a result, together they are two stateless people born in South Africa, living in Tembisa.
The 23-year-old has been frequenting Home Affairs offices for the past four years, before her child was born, to try to get her ID document, only to be told that her ID number had been issued...