{"id":229653,"date":"2022-06-23T23:46:08","date_gmt":"2022-06-23T21:46:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.groundup.org.za\/article\/mass-destruction-of-lives-south-africas-immigration-policy-on-zimbabweans\/"},"modified":"2022-06-23T23:46:08","modified_gmt":"2022-06-23T21:46:08","slug":"as-deadline-approaches-zimbabweans-face-a-stark-choice-start-from-zero-in-a-broken-country-or-live-undocumented-in-sa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/as-deadline-approaches-zimbabweans-face-a-stark-choice-start-from-zero-in-a-broken-country-or-live-undocumented-in-sa\/","title":{"rendered":"As deadline approaches Zimbabweans face a stark choice: start from zero in a broken country or live undocumented in SA"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\u201cSurely the situation leaves me with no choice but to live under the radar,\u201d says a maths teacher who has been living in South Africa since 2008 and now faces possible deportation with the scrapping of the Zimbabwean Exemption Permit. Photos: Tariro Washinyira<\/p>\n

Three Zimbabweans who held Zimbabwean Exemption Permits, which the South African government has now scrapped, share their anxiety and anguish as they face deportation, uprooting their lives and children and starting all over again in Zimbabwe, or continuing to live in South Africa as undocumented aliens.<\/p>\n

Shepherd Muroyiwa is one of about 178,000 Zimbabweans badly affected by the cabinet<\/a> decision not to renew the Zimbabwe Exemption Permit (ZEP), which expired in December 2021. ZEP holders were given until the end of December 2022 to legalise their status in the country by other means. For most this is not possible.<\/p>\n

Muroyiwa runs a market in Parow, Cape Town, that specialises in selling fresh produce popular with immigrants \u2013 spinach, covo, rape, pumpkin leaves, okra, mazoe crush concentrate, kapenta fish and mopani worms.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are no other people [here] selling what I specialise in. Moving to Zimbabwe would mean the death of my family\u2019s livelihood,\u201d says Muroyiwa. \u201cIt is like walking into darkness. We don\u2019t know how we will survive.\u201d<\/p>\n

Muroyiwa established his business in 2009.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are only filling the gap and augmenting the South African economy. We can\u2019t be accused of taking business from the citizens \u2026 There is empty space [a stall] right next to me. Why are they [South Africans] not taking it?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIf a South African takes over my business, to whom he is going to sell? As immigrants we have common foods we eat, and we sell to each other,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

Shepherd Muroyiwa at his veggie stall where he sells produce popular with other Zimbabweans.<\/p>\n

A single mother and preschool principal, who has been living in South Africa for 13 years and asked not to be identified, said she had hoped to get a waiver. A waiver allows Home Affairs to disregard certain requirements for permission to stay, such as when an employer can prove they advertised for a job but no South Africans qualified.<\/p>\n

She applied for a waiver from Home Affairs in December last year, but she has never even received a response. She followed up in February but was told she cannot start a new permit application until she gets a response.<\/p>\n

She is anxious. She showed GroundUp copies of rejected waivers other Zimbabweans had received.<\/p>\n

Relocating, she said, would be starting from zero.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf we sell our belongings, it\u2019s not going to be purchased for the actual value,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy 12-year-old child speaks English and Afrikaans only. How is she going to be integrated in Zimbabwean government schools? \u2026 Children who have already moved to Zimbabwe are stressed. The adjustment is going to be huge.\u201d<\/p>\n

Another ZEP holder, who also asked to stay anonymous, teaches grade 5 maths. Only grade 8 to 12 maths teachers qualify for critical skills.<\/p>\n

\u201cI will lose my job \u2026 Mentally it\u2019s eating me up, trying to think how am I going to survive,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

He used to teach in a rural school in Zimbabwe but fled political violence in 2008.<\/p>\n

\u201cI had to run away from home, sleep in the mountains and eventually I came to South Africa. I had to sleep in a queue braving cold, rainy weather for days before I got asylum, which I renewed every six months before the government implemented DZP [now the ZEP.]<\/p>\n

\u201cSo, since then, I was on that permit. I got a teaching job in 2016. Before that I worked for a property management company. I then studied a BA in environmental management with UNISA and completed it last year,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

He has two sons at university, a third in high school and a daughter in primary school. He says he has loans, furniture accounts and a mortgage to pay. But without legal status his bank account will be closed.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t even want to imagine it\u201d, he says.<\/p>\n

He said he will never get a job in Zimbabwe\u2019s civil service.<\/p>\n

\u201cI would rather live here undocumented and I will only go when they deport me. This means I am turning myself into a life of a criminal to run away from law enforcement and Home Affairs officials, which is something that should not be happening to a professional person like me. Surely, the situation leaves me with no choice but to live under the radar?\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are in this position because of this brotherhood in Africa where presidents are shielding one another instead of rebuking when they go astray. If South Africa had done the right thing from the beginning we might not have been here or stayed this far,\u201d he said, presumably referring to former President Thabo Mbeki\u2019s policy of \u201cquiet diplomacy\u201d towards Zimbabwe in the 2000s, which many believe gave ZANU-PF, Zimbabwe\u2019s ruling party, a free hand to loot the country.<\/p>\n

Activist Anthony Muteti said, \u201cThe situation has not improved in Zimbabwe. The South African government has not done enough to make the ruling party ZANU-PF accountable. They declared the election in Zimbabwe free and fair when people were intimidated and murdered.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of Zimbabweans are going to come back undocumented \u2026 The intensification of security at the border is not going to work; it is a dream; it is a fantasy. I come from a province close to South Africa where people used to walk to South Africa for so many years. Our forefathers have established families; it will go on forever.\u201d<\/p>\n

Julius Shamu, a Zimbabwe community leader, says, \u201cAs for the claims of Zimbabweans taking jobs from South Africans, I do not agree. How would people working for themselves take jobs from South Africans? How can you tell a person who has been living in the country for more than ten years to go back to his country without proper planning?\u201d<\/p>\n

He said the Helen Suzman Foundation\u2019s challenge<\/a> to government\u2019s decision not to renew the ZEP gives Zimbabweans some hope. At least there are people and organisations fighting on their side, he said.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

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Source: GroundUp<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cSurely the situation leaves me with no choice but to live under the radar,\u201d says a maths teacher who has been living in South Africa since 2008 and now faces possible deportation with the scrapping of the Zimbabwean Exemption Permit. Photos: Tariro Washinyira Three Zimbabweans who held Zimbabwean Exemption Permits, which the South African government […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":229654,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[9928],"tags":[28001],"class_list":{"0":"post-229653","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-groundup","8":"tag-groundup","9":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/as-deadline-approaches-zimbabweans-face-a-stark-choice-start-from-zero-in-a-broken-country-or-live-undocumented-in-sa.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/229653","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=229653"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/229653\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/229654"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=229653"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=229653"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=229653"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}