GOOD press statement by Brett Herron,
GOOD: Secretary-General & Member of Parliament
18 March 2022
While farmworkers originally from Zimbabwe and Lesotho engage in deadly xenophobic violence in Robertson, near Cape Town, tens of thousands of South African farmworkers are unemployed and live in squalor on the fringes of rural towns.
This toxic and unjust tragedy is a direct consequence of South Africa’s non-existent immigration policy and porous borders, but it is also a situation for which farm-owners must account. For it is they who have systematically reduced the number of South Africans they employ and accommodate on their farms, in favour of cheaper and more exploitable foreign labour.
South Africa has regrettable histories of identity politics and xenophobic violence, and is presently suffering its highest ever rate of unemployment. Compounding this tinder box of circumstances are unscrupulous politicians looking for ways to harness xenophobia as a political tool.
The GOOD Party condemns the perpetrators of the violence in Robertson, and calls for their arrest and deportation.
We further condemn all who seek to manipulate anti-foreigner emotion for political ends.
We call on the State to speed up systems and processes that will enable it to reduce the number of undocumented immigrant workers vying with local people for precious jobs.
And we call on the Minister of Agriculture to urgently manage the situation, because that is her job.
Minister Didiza must facilitate urgent discussions between farm-owners and organized labour to draft an agreement slanted towards the rights of local workers to jobs – with deadlines and consequences for both owners and workers who break the law. And she must work with the Ministers of Home Affairs and Labour to make it real.
Media enquiries:
Brett Herron, GOOD: Secretary-General & Member of Parliament
Cell: 0825183264
Email: bretth@forgood.org.za
Samkelo Mgobozi, GOOD: Media Manager
Cell: 0792315977 (WhatsApp)/0829684021 (calls)
Email: samm@forgood.org.za