Selv om man kommer fra DR Congos ofte grumme virkelighed, kan Sydafrika være en slem oplevelse for en 15-årig flygtning
JOHANNESBURG, 19 August 2011 (IRIN): At the age of 15, Nestor Tata watched rebel soldiers in the DR Congo kill his father and not long afterwards came home from school to find the murdered body of his mother.
With no siblings (søskende) or anyone else to turn to, he took his parent’s savings from their hiding place under a mattress, packed a small bag and fled.
– I decided if I stayed, they would kill me too. I took a taxi to Kalemie (in eastern DR Congo) and then a boat across Lake Tanganyika and then a bus to Lusaka (in Zambia)…I still had no idea where I was going, he told IRIN.
After a month in Zambia and another two months in Zimbabwe, Tata made his way to South Africa where his youth and lack of English got him across the border despite having no documents.
“I arrived here by God,” he said.
But Tata’s troubles were far from over.
South Africa’s progressive constitution and laws extend the same protections to unaccompanied minors (the term given to children who cross border without parents or adult care-givers) as to local children, but in practice they face immense bureaucratic hurdles and are often left to fend for themselves.
Although no figures are available, Mmone Moletsale of the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) said that based on reports from their partners, South Africa was receiving an increasing number of such children, but still lacked an efficient system for dealing with them.
The Department of Home Affairs is responsible for issuing the immigration permits and identity documents the children need to attend school or access social services but will not do so unless they have been assigned a social worker by the Department of Social Development and have a Children’s Court order setting out their care arrangements.
– This is where one of the major problems arises, said Moletsale, explaining that the type of assistance social workers are supposed to provide is not clearly defined and that there are inconsistencies between different government departments about which should come first – documentation or the Children’s Court order.
– Children’s Court, Social Development and Home Affairs all have different standard operating procedures when it comes to unaccompanied minors, said Samantha Mundeta of Lawyers for Human Rights, who is currently helping 75 such children navigate the maze of conflicting regulations.
– There is a lot of passing of the buck (lade sagen gå videre til andre), noted she.
With government social workers in short supply and often reluctant or unsure what to do with unaccompanied minors, most of whom are over the age of 15, Mundeta often resorts to linking them with NGOs like the Refugee Aid Organization (RAO).
RAO has funding from UNHCR to help about 110 migrant and refugee children in Pretoria and Johannesburg with their immediate needs for food, shelter and counselling.
According to Moletsale, Social Development has agreed on the need to better define the role of social workers with regard to unaccompanied children and to work with other government departments to develop one set of procedures for assisting them.
Xenophobic element?
Læs videre på http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?reportid=93546
Se også http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?reportid=88249
