Pressing South Africa on its Treatment of Zimbabweans

Human Rights Watch's advocacy work and our report "Neighbors in Need: Zimbabweans Seeking Refuge in South Africa" pressured the South African government to open a new Refugee Reception Office on the border to register Zimbabwean asylum claims. We held extensive meetings with the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), which resulted in the agency accepting our assessment that Zimbabweans left their country involuntarily and agreeing with our recommendation that they deserve temporary protection in South Africa. UNHCR also accepted our assessment to consider as refugees the victims of Zimbabwe's politically motivated forced evictions of 700,000 people from their homes in 2005, which we had documented thoroughly. We supported South African human rights groups in their own advocacy and highlighted the plight of Zimbabwean asylum seekers in the southern African media. The new Refugee Reception Office near the border makes it possible for tens of thousands of Zimbabweans to make their claims as soon as they arrive in South Africa. We succeeded in creating an environment in which it is now far less likely that Zimbabweans seeking asylum will be sent back to economic and political chaos in Zimbabwe.