By CHARLOTTE SUTHERLAND (1)

The recent xenophobic attacks in South Africa, which have displaced a large number of foreigners, migrant workers, refugees and asylum seekers, have shocked the international community. Following up the May 2008 newsletter, which focussed on the increase of migrant workers in Southern Africa, this month’s newsletter serves to emphasise the particular intersection of vulnerabilities at which female foreigners in Southern Africa stand. Many of these women have tireless courage, and have withstood difficulties and pressures in their home countries, as well as the intimidating experience of moving to another country, in this case South Africa, as they attempt to find ways to make a living for themselves and their families.

AN INTERSECTION OF VULNERABILITIES

In their journeys as migrants, however, these women also face corrupt and evil people who exploit women who wish to cross the border. They are already vulnerable, as women, as foreign nationals, and often as unskilled labourers. The xenophobic attacks in South Africa are not unlike those that have occurred in other countries before, but because almost 50% of migrants in the South African Development Community (SADC) region are women, a gender perspective on the xenophobic attacks in South Africa is justified. A gender perspective also corresponds to the call of Romi Fuller, Project Manager of the Violence and Transition Project at the Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation in South Africa, who called for a gendered focus on this issue in a recent opinion piece (2). In this article, Fuller laments the “double jeopardy” of women migrants, who are not only vulnerable as migrants, women and unskilled labourers, but also as subjects of the displaced anger and hatefulness of people who themselves were sheltered by other Africans not more than a few decades ago. Xenophobia targets women and children, says Fuller, because they represent the settling of foreigners in South Africa. Migrant men may be seen as temporary visitors, but if their families settle down, this is associated with serious and long-term impact on the host country.

“THEY STEAL OUR WOMEN AND OUR JOBS”

The xenophobic attacks left hundreds of foreign nationals beaten, stabbed, some even torched, most displaced and too afraid to return to their homes, of which many had been looted and burnt to the ground. President Mbeki said that, “both through the struggle against apartheid, as well as in the manner in which we defied formidable odds to find a peaceful political solution, we gave hope that it was possible for the peoples of the world to be united in their diversity. However, events of the last few weeks – of criminal attacks on immigrants – have impacted negatively on our collective standing as frontline troops in the global struggle for a humane and tolerant world”. The men, women and children who sought shelter in large tents with few facilities face dropping winter temperatures and thousands more have caught busses sent by their home countries to remove them from the violence, as many South African citizens bow their heads in shame.

Among these victims of xenophobia were many women, who experienced violent attacks on their bodies and their belongings. The perpetrators’ use of rape as a weapon is founded on two conceptualisations of women. First, women are referred to by South African men as “our women”. Foreign men have been accused of “stealing our women”, and from this narrative, one can detect patriarchal undertones of anxiety about men’s ability to provide for their families. The perpetrators then turn on, those who can be referred to in this context as the women of the ‘others’, foreign women, to violate them in such a way as to demean them and the men they are connected to. Secondly, therefore, women are conceptualised as representative of a community and an identity. Systematic rape of women is regularly used as a weapon of war in conflict situations, for example in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and the Darfur region, to name just two. The attack of women and children is like attacking the foundation of a community in a very intimate and damaging way. It sends out a message to men that they are not strong enough to protect their families.

CONTEXT NOT ORIENTATED TO GENDER RIGHTS

As Romi Fuller points out, the South African context is characterised by daily sexual violence, hence it is hard to determine which incidences of rape are the result of xenophobia and which are results of opportunities spawned by a generally violent and lawless context. Regardless of which of these two causes prevail, women still bear the brunt of such sexual violence. South African women may even be raped as punishment for dating and marrying foreign men, since sexual violence is a well-known avenue for South African men to control and punish “their” women. Most of these rape cases are believed to go unreported, since the women find themselves in a country where victims of sexual violence often suffer secondary victimisation. Even police are believed to be corrupt, intimidating and abusive of foreigners. Upon their arrival at police stations, women are told that police cannot provide services to a ‘kwerekwere’, a derogatory term used to refer to African immigrants. This illustrates the point that many policemen do not subscribe to justice for all, but instead are xenophobes themselves. One woman, for example, was told to go and report her case in her home country, and “not here in South Africa” (3).

Migrants are often blamed for a variety of domestic problems. Women migrants are perceived to be stealing South Africans’ jobs and public resources such as health and educational funds. This, in combination with the fact that women are soft targets and foreign women are seen as representative of foreign families, render them extremely vulnerable to attacks and particularly sexual violence. Assaulted and hiding migrant women had no access to antiretrovirals (ARV) or medical doctors during the xenophobic attacks. Additionally, migrant women do not benefit from South African employment and resources to the extent they are perceived to, especially if they are illegal immigrants or undocumented migrants. They generally find jobs in the informal economy and do not, therefore have automatic access to health services. Many of these women who own businesses have seen their stores looted and burnt, and now may become an additional burden on the struggling South African economy, instead of contributing to it, as they had previously been doing.

RECONCILIATION AND REINTEGRATION

The question of how these displaced and violated men, women and children are to be reintegrated into society is a tough one that the state must address. The South African Government has been severely criticised for its lukewarm response to the attacks. The extent to which women’s experiences are to be dealt with is questionable in a context where the violence has been reported in a gender-neutral fashion. Many migrant women in South Africa first fled conflict-ridden areas where they had been traumatised by sexual and domestic violence. Now the South African context has failed to be as supportive as they had once hoped and in fact has traumatised these women even more than they had already been in their home countries.

Reconciliation is an ever more mammoth task, since these people cannot be guarded by police constantly and their communities have to be relied on to discontinue the xenophobic attacks. It cannot be estimated how communities will react to reintegration efforts, however, and women remain the softest targets to backlash attacks. Unless South Africa sees the rise of a morally strong leadership, the current vacuum of political and moral leadership will allow for future attacks on foreigners, and the international community questioning the “rainbow nation”.