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Totally out of the question that a third of Malawis population live in SA

Source: Africa Check, 13/01/2017


South African television programme Carte Blanche investigated the
fraught journey to South Africa many Malawians experience. But their
hard-hitting figure that almost one-third of Malawi’s population live
in South Africa is completely off-point.


Salim Eddie Ibrahim from Malawi joined hundreds of refugees as they
queued outside the South African department of home affairs in Cape
Town in June 2013 to apply for extensions of their asylum seeker
permits. Photo: AFP/RODGER BOSCH
After the publication of this piece, Carte Blanche corrected the
statement on their website.


For some Malawians trying to get to South Africa without travel
documents, the journey ends in robbery, sexual assault or even death.
South African investigative journalism show Carte Blanche last year
documented these atrocities and the insert was repeated last Sunday.
Advertising the show, Carte Blanche stated on their website (and in a
TV promo, according to a reader) that almost one-third of Malawi’s
population lives and works in South Africa.


Like many other African nationals, Malawians make their way to South
Africa for various reasons. But is there evidence that nearly a third
of Malawi’s population have left for South Africa?


The claim originated with the Malawian high commissioner to South
Africa, Professor Chrissie Kaponda, who was asked how many Malawians
live in South Africa.


I don’t know, Kaponda told Carte Blanche. “I don’t have a real figure
but I have heard projections like 6 million or 5 million. Actually, we
don’t have any reports of how many Malawians are here.
A Carte Blanche voice-over continued, stating that the figure used by
Kaponda represents almost a third of the country’s entire population
of 18 million”.


This figure is more than the most recent estimates of Malawi’s
population. Malawi’s National Statistical Office has projected that in
2016 the country’s population would be 16.83 million while the United
Nations estimated the population at 17.75 million.


Data shows less than 100,000 Malawians in SA
To start with, if 5 to 6 million Malawians lived in South Africa, it
would represent as much as triple the total number of foreign-born
migrants currently thought to live in the country.


South Africa’s 2011 Census showed an estimated 2.2 million people
living in South Africa were born outside the country. Statistics South
Africa’s recent 2016 Community Survey found this figure had dropped to
1.6 million people. However, this decline seems improbable and Stats
SA indicated that they would be investigating the matter.


The UN provides a higher estimate of the migrant population in South
Africa, at 3.14 million by mid-2015. In a detailed analysis for Africa
Check, University of Cape Town demographer Professor Tom Moultrie
suggests that based on available data, at best we can assume that
there are between one and three million foreign-born migrants living
in South Africa.


Stats SA and the UN population division on international migration
both provide estimates of Malawians living in South Africa that are
magnitudes lower than the 5 to 6 million claimed.


The 2011 census indicated that 86,606 people who were born in Malawi
lived in South Africa. The latest figure, from the 2016 survey, is
78,796. This is in line with the UN population division’s 2015
estimate of 76,605.


The census and community surveys do not ask whether or not migrants
are documented and therefore these figures should include all
foreign-born migrants. However, there are suggestions that, given
South Africa’s history of xenophobia, foreign-born migrants are
increasingly cautious of revealing their origins.


Although concerns have been raised about recent figures and estimates
surrounding foreign-born migrants in South Africa, it is plain to see
that the total number of Malawi-born migrants living in South Africa
does not come remotely close to the millions suggested.


Migration data is often inexact as it is “notoriously hard to
collect”, Moultrie explained. However, if the number of Malawians
living in South Africa did stretch into the millions, experts say
there would be other indicators of such a dramatic spike.


“The precise numbers of foreigners in South Africa is up for debate,
Professor Loren Landau from the African Centre for Migration and
Society at the University of the Witwatersrand told Africa Check.


“The even more difficult task of counting people from a
particular country is open to further interpretation.


Still, the difference between the official estimates and the Carte
Blanche figure is too big, Landau added.


“It would be a miracle” if the true number of Malawians in South
Africa were more than 60 times the available estimates, he said.


Professor of actuarial science at the University of Cape Town’s Centre
for Actuarial Research, Rob Dorrington, explained: Unless there is
some reason that we are missing Malawians in particular the same would
have to be true for other foreign-born people, at least the majority
of foreigners.


The chief director for demography at Stats SA, Diego Iturralde, said
similar claims have been about other nationalities but that these
statements lack proof.


“It is totally out of the question that there would be 5 to 6 million
Malawians in South Africa. Similar suggestions have been made about
Zimbabwe, Bangladesh and other country’s residents in South Africa and
none of them are accompanied by any robust or credible data, he told
Africa Check.


If there were that many Malawians, or that many foreign-born migrants
from any nation, the spike would be reflected in other data, such as
annual birth rates, he added.


“Migration is at the best of times a complex thing to measure, and I
would advise the public at large to desist from making
headline-grabbing claims without substantiating it with data that is
robust, credible and has passed the scientific test for rigour,”
Iturralde said.


Conclusion: The claim is nowhere near correct
The Malawi high commissioner’s statement to Carte Blanche, that she
had “heard projections like 6 million or 5 million” Malawi-born
citizens were living in South Africa, is an anecdotal claim. It could
and should have easily been checked and debunked by the South African
investigative reporting programme.


Although official foreign-born migration estimates are not without
problems, figures from organisations like Stats SA and the UN clearly
show that the total number of foreign-born migrants living in South
Africa is significantly less than that.


In addition, all current data suggests that the Malawi-born population
currently living in South Africa does not exceed 100,000 people â€" a
fraction of the incorrect figure beamed into living rooms around the
country.


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