| Description |
With a particular focus on the health sector, this report documents responses to xenophobia in
South Africa (SA) from 2000-2022. The overall aim of the research is to determine what has been
effective in challenging xenophobia and how to foster solidarity to inform strategic and thoughtful
future action, while identifying different forms and modes of responses to xenophobia, including
xenophobic violence during this period.
Over 80% of the population in SA rely on state-funded access to health. While almost everyone
faces challenges in accessing treatment in the country’s failing public healthcare system, specific
categories of the population – including asylum seekers, refugees and migrants without documents
– face heightened risks, intersectional violence and discrimination when doing so. With rising
inequality, unemployment and a public health system crippled by underfunding, corruption and
systemic weaknesses, discrimination and violence against foreign nationals and others perceived
as “outsiders” such as South Africans from other provinces or naturalised citizens is increasing. The
Covid-19 pandemic has further exacerbated the risks and vulnerabilities for many of the country’s
most marginalised populations.
Drawing from an audit of key civil society actions and strategies that have resisted (health)
xenophobia in SA over the past two decades, the report explores the following main questions:
what kinds of responses have emerged to tackle multiple forms of health xenophobia? What
initiatives, strategies and actions were taken in the past and are taken now – whether organised
or informal, by coalitions, organisations, groups or individuals – and how can an understanding of
these responses help to mobilise more successfully in the future?
The key findings show that there are persistent civil society responses that aim to address the
immediate needs of foreign nationals while simultaneously fighting for more awareness, longterm systemic change and recognition of the core structural issues that have led to the crisis
within the public healthcare system. To do this, civil society has utilised a variety of advocacy tools:
engaging with Parliamentary mechanisms, community mobilisation, protest action, statements,
public education, lodging complaints with statutory bodies, embarking on litigation and engaging
community networks to mobilise on a local clinic level. The findings of this research also show
that within an increasingly challenging context, diverse collaborations and partnerships can
be particularly valuable. They draw on the experiences of social justice organisations and their
connections with groups and individuals embedded in communities through their histories of local
level networking and activism. Highlighting the small, less visible responses which, often have
more sustainable impact, this report offers a starting point from which to plan and strategise for the
future.
However, considering continued and increasingly more emboldened and explicit xenophobia, and
the failure (or refusal) of the South African government to take consistent and unequivocal action
against xenophobia, it is evident that civil society responses have not been sufficient to quell and
address this prejudice. While building on the strategies of the past, new strategies, alliances and
energy are urgently needed to continue the struggle to ensure the Freedom Charter vision that
“South Africa belongs to all who live in it” – including its public healthcare system.
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