"After they whipped and then beat me with an iron bar, I knew I could not continue and had to leave to survive, so I came to South Africa," a woman called Grace told Gerry Simpson, a Human Rights Watch researcher investigating the plight of Zimbabweans in South Africa.
Grace is among the estimated 1.5 million Zimbabweans who fled across the border in recent years as Zimbabwe descended into economic disaster and brutal political violence. Zimbabwe has suffered inflation rates of more than 100,000 percent, an 80 percent unemployment rate, and a cholera epidemic, as well as killings, arrests, and the torture of hundreds of opposition supporters around the 2008 presidential election.
The South African government opened a new refugee reception office on the border with Zimbabwe in response to Human Rights Watch's call to end unlawful detention and deportation of asylum seekers as they tried to reach refugee reception offices hundreds of miles from the border. The refugee reception office enables Zimbabweans to apply for asylum as soon as they enter South Africa. The huge number of claims registered there since the center opened in July 2008 significantly contributed to the enormous strain on South Africa's asylum system, which in turn encouraged the government to respond to Human Rights Watch's call for comprehensive measures protecting all Zimbabweans in South Africa.
On April 3, 2009, the government of South Africa announced it would hand out "special dispensation permits" to allow Zimbabweans to remain in South Africa legally for six to twelve months. Now, up to 1.5 million people will be free of the fear of violence, arrest, and deportation back to the country they struggled to escape. Grace, and hundreds of thousands like her, will have the right to work, to send their children to school, and to access basic health care.
Source: Human Rights Watch
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