Programme News
7 July 2014
(News)
A recent court case highlights the necessity of aligning South Africa’s refugee policy and practice with education law to ensure the removal of obstacles to an education for asylum-seeking children in South Africa.
Lawyers for Human Rights and the Centre for Child Law recently brought an application to address the plight of eight minor children who fled the war-torn Democratic...
7 July 2014
(News)
Last week Frederick Ngubane’s application for citizenship was denied by the Department of Home Affairs. He remains in South Africa but lives as a stateless person. He told AAISHA DADI PATEL his story.
I like to practise playing the piano at St Albans Cathedral down the road. They know me there. There isn’t much else that I can do; it’s illegal to employ someone who is...
27 June 2014
(News)
The annual global trends report of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) paints a very bleak picture.
The number of people forced to flee their homes across the world has exceeded 50‑million for the first time since World War II, an exponential rise that is stretching host countries and aid organisations to breaking point, according to figures released last week....
26 June 2014
(News)
Lawyers for Human Rights have been interviewed on SABC Newsroom about the violence witnessed at the Marabastad refugee reception office in Pretoria last week and outcome of a statelessness case.
23 June 2014
(News)
Treated like scum
As the world celebrated Refugee Day last week , security guards - employed by the Department of Home Affairs - sjambokked and pepper- sprayed asylum-seekers in Marabastad.
The department has stopped refugee reception offices in Johannesburg, Cape Town and Port Elizabeth from registering new asylum claims. The only offices that take on new claims are in Marabastad, Durban, Musina...
20 June 2014
(Press release)
Lawyers for Human Rights is disturbed by the increasing number of incidents of violence against foreign nationals in South Africa.
On the eve of World Refugee Day on 20 June, LHR would like to express deep concern about the inhumane treatment of refugees and asylum-seekers at refugee reception offices across the country. On Thursday (19 June), LHR witnessed first-hand the violence...
9 June 2014
(News)
Patrick Bracher, Director Norton Rose Fulbright SA, expert guest was Kaajal Ramjathan-Keogh, head of the Refugee and Migrants Programme at Lawyers for Human Rights.
She spoke about recent amendments in the Immigration Act regulations, and in particular how these affect refugees. She will also discuss a case heard by the Supreme Court of Appeal recently dealing with related issues....
5 June 2014
(Press release)
Lawyers for Human Rights is challenging the constitutionality of the procedures and safeguards governing the detention of people suspected of being illegal foreigners under the Immigration Act and the new Immigration Regulations at the Lindela Repatriation Centre near Krugersdorp.
LHR has grown increasingly alarmed at serious constitutional difficulties with both the legislation concerned and the...
3 June 2014
(News)
Passop's Bernard Toyambi helps Zimbabweans get permits they applied for years ago. Picture: Kristen van Schie
Cape Town - At the end of this year, special permits granted to Zimbabweans living in South Africa will start to expire.
Which is a problem for Alice, seeing as she’s still waiting on hers, four years after originally applying.
She was one of tens of thousands who queued...
3 June 2014
(News)
No learning for orphans
By the time he was 13, his parents had been stabbed to death by soldiers, his grandmother murdered and his aunt gang-raped.
Now the teen, who fled the Democratic Republic of Congo for South Africa with his aunt in 2011, is fighting to go to school.
The teenager, 16, is one of eight children who have taken the home affairs, basic education and social development ministers,...