South African president Cyril Ramaphosa has warned the local citizens who attacks illegal immigrants around the country.
The xenophobic attack has been one of the main topics that has been trending in South Africa this year – which has led to multiple people losing their lives.
According to DailySun, The ANC president recently visited KwaZulu-Natal, where he warned local citizens against taking the law into their own hands regarding anti-immigrants protests, looting and damaging the properties.
CYRIL RAMAPHOSAʼS PLAN TO FIGHT ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION
During his door-to-door campaign in the Kwazulu-Natal town, Durban, President Cyril Ramaphosa stated that he launched the “Five-Point Plan”. The campaign is to strengthen the country’s immigration law, providing more national security and also fight against Xenophobic attack at the same time.
More to know about the “Five-Point Plan”:
• Law Enforcement Crackdowns and dedicated courts:
The Department Of Home affairs aims to work together with the South African Police Service (SAPS) to track down and identify illegal immigrants around the country. That way it will be much easier to identify those who do not own Identity documents or any required documents to be in the country.
• Using technology to tighten the border security:
The government is looking to make a huge investment on the Border Management Authority (BMA). The first step was to launch the Electronic Traveller Authorisation (ETA) system and also there was an upgrade at the South African key ports including OR Tambo international Airport.
• Domestic Immigration System to be Overhauled:
One of the main factors that has been affecting South Africa is fraud and fake Identity Documents that continue being sold to illegal immigrants. The scraping of Green bar-coded Identity Books in South Africa has been a game changer in terms of fighting against fake identity documents.
The Green bar-coded Identity books were easy to manipulate or tamper, which has also resulted in thousands of South African citizens seeing their identity being stolen.
According to TimesLive, there has been over 300 000 fraud-blocked IDs by the department of Home affairs due to suspicions of identity theft, fraud and also duplicate numbers. Minister of Home affairs, Dr Leon Schreiber, is the one who ordered these identity documents to be blocked in order to verify citizenship.
• Penalties for employers employing illegal immigrants:
The new National Labour Migration Policy is being introduced by the South African government. This means there will be new 10 000 labour inspectors who will be working hard to crackdown every business or employer who hires undocumented immigrants.
Business owners who are found employing undocumented immigrants will face much heavier fines and penalties for breaking the South African law.
• Regional and Continental Cooperation:
South African president Cyril Ramaphosa is looking to work together with their neighbouring countries including Zimbabwe, Lesotho, Botswana and Mozambique in order to find the main reason why there is high illegal immigration in Southern Africa.
REASON FOR HIGH ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION
Stats in the past years have revealed that the main factors causing illegal immigrations in the Southern Africa is because of unemployment, poverty and weak local economies.
The country mostly affected by illegal immigration has been South Africa. South Africa has now recorded 33.6% of people who are officially unemployed, according to statssa. The expanded rate of unemployment people in the country has risen to 43.8% (this include the people who are not actually seeking any jobs in South Africa as they have given up).
The South African youth is now sitting on 47.4% in the unemployment rate (people aged between 15 to 34). That means around 5 million young people in South Africa are currently unemployed.
The total number of “lucky” people in South Africa to get jobs is around 16.7 million, however, these numbers include in formal, informal and also in agricultural sectors. The unfortunate part about those working across informal and agricultural sectors is that their incomes barely covers their needs.
(these stats were published by the South African Government website)
UNEMPLOYMENT LEADING TO HOMELESS
While the South African official statistics South Africa (stats SA) revealed that there are about 55 719 homeless people in the country, the independent researchers have sadly proved otherwise.
The independent researchers have revealed that more than 200 000 people are currently homeless in South Africa.
During the South African Statistics Report, they revealed that 70.1% of homeless citizens are actually men, while the 29.9% are women.