New refugee offices for Cape Town

Source: Groundup, 30/01/2018

Meanwhile refugees don’t have enough toilets at current offices
Portable toilets have been removed at the Cape Town Refugee Office,
forcing some refugees to use the filthy grounds outside. But a new
refugee office for Cape Town is on the way, says Department of Home
Affairs spokesperson David Hlabane.
This follows a ruling by the Supreme Court of Appeal last September
that Home Affairs must “reopen and maintain a fully functional
refugee reception office in or around the Cape Town Metropolitan
Municipality, by Friday 31 March 2018.”
Last year in December the Constitutional Court rejected an
application for leave to appeal against this ruling by the Department
of Home Affairs.
Hlabane told GroundUp: “The Department of Home Affairs has written to
the Department of Public Works to get a suitable building for the
refugees’ office to give effect to the court order and to ensure that
all the needs of refugees and asylum seekers are properly met.”
Meanwhile refugees are complaining about inadequate and inaccessible
toilets at the Home Affairs Foreshore offices.
When GroundUp visited the offices last week, the portable toilets
which refugees used had been removed. Some were using the grounds
outside as toilets and the surroundings were a mess, smelly and
filthy.
Inside the building, women were queuing at the only two toilets
available to women refugees. One woman, from Rwanda, was trying to
change her baby’s nappy on the floor of the toilet.
She complained about the department’s treatment of refugees.
“Why can’t they make a baby cubicle available? Surely South Africans
would never have their small babies lie in toilets like this. And if
this baby falls sick I will have to take her to the government
hospital where they will treat me badly again,” she said.
“We acknowledge portable toilets were removed. Contingency plans were
made,” said Hlabane.
He said four toilets previously used by staff had been made available
to refugees. The Refugee Office only occupied two floors and the
Department did not have access to toilets on other floors, he said.
Aleck Kuhudzai of the Refugee Legal and Advocacy Centre said the
Refugee Act gave refugees basic human rights including the right to
dignity, “which is clearly being violated”.
Anthony Muteti of Voice of Africans for Change said portable toilets
should be made available.
A Bangladeshi refugee who gave his name as Abhijeet said Home Affairs
was letting refugees down. “I don’t need security to walk me up to
the toilet. Toilets should be easily accessible. This is the reason
people are urinating everywhere.”
“Clients are accompanied to the toilets by security personnel for
control purposes as there is a need to monitor access to the
building,” said Hlabane.