Centre for Human Rights

Many migrants from Southern Africa come to South Africa every year in search of a better life. This article explores the extent to which foreign African migrants are covered or excluded by the social protection regime in South Africa, using the situation of Malawian migrants as a case study. The article demonstrates that there are both normative (or formal) exclusions, as well as practical exclusions from social protection faced by these migrants. In light of this grim reality, the article explores the various survival strategies that these migrants adopt in order to hedge against the risk of socio-economic shocks. The article shows that there are well-developed informal social protection networks largely based on nationality and kinship. Another key finding in the study is that, for many migrants, the movement to South Africa is in itself a social protection measure to protect against existing or future socio-economic risks and vulnerabilities in their native state. The article sug...

This research report demonstrates that international human rights law played a quintessential role in the drafting of the Constitution of South Africa, 1996, particularly the Bill of Rights, and that this was more so with regard to socio-economic rights where the ...

Malawi is one of the least developed countries in the world. According to the 2010 United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) Human Development Report, Malawi ranks number 153 from a sample of 169 countries in terms of the level of human development.' The UNDP Human Development Report is the general framework used by the United Nations Organization (UN) in determining the general levels of prosperity among States. Malawi faces a multiplicity of socioeconomic problems. These include a fast-growing population that in turn exerts substantial pressure on limited land and natural resources;2 high unemployment levels; endemic official corruption in government and public administration; a bloated civil service with generally low levels of efficiency;3 lack of fiscal discipline in the public service; heavy dependence on outside balance of payments support;4 generally low levels of education and training opportunities; a poor state of health services compounded by an HIV/AIDS pandemic that