CASE STUDY: Causes of Displacement in South Africa

Case Study
Causes of Displacement in South Africa

Based on studies in South Africa by the Surplus People's Project and others, some four million people are calculated to have been displaced in South Africa under apartheid rule between 1950 and 1990. Following is a listing of various causes of displacement (Ressler, 1993).

· "farm removals" — removals due to abolition of labor tenancy system and the removal of full-time farm workers for reason of redundancy or because they are dissatisfied with conditions

· "influx control/pass laws" — eviction or forced removal of people from urban areas

· removal of "black spots" — the removal of black people who owned land and held title in areas later restricted to white owners

· "incorporation" — manipulating jurisdictional lines to incorporate black owned land into bantustans for more geographically cohesive and ethnically-similar arrangements. (Bantustans are all-black enclaves that had a limited degree of self-government)

· "infrastructural" — removal for construction of dams, game reserves, forestry plantations

· "strategic" projects — removed for construction of military installations

· "betterment planning" — forced urbanization in the bantustans that forced people in scattered homesteads to move into consolidated residential "villages" or "closer settlements."

· "urban relocation" - forced removal of townships

· "eviction of squatters" - destruction of informal settlements in urban and peri-urban areas

· "political removals" — deportation, banishment and flight from political repression

· urban planning/settlement schemes

· distress movement due to loss of employment—labor shedding, reduction of work forces

· flight from state violence

· flight from extra-governmental, political parties, "warlords" and criminal violence

· distress movement because of destitution

· distress movement due to drought/poverty

· forced movement due to flooding

· renters forced to move by landlords

· boarders forced by their own families to move

· families who loose their home due to illegal property sales

· "returnees" — people who after returning to South Africa are without a home

Q. Name the three major purposes for international involvement in situations involving displaced persons.

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Q. What are the major causes of displacement? In your country or from your experience, for what other reasons does displacement occur?

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ANSWERS

To provide humanitarian assistance, to protect human rights and justice, to promote and maintain peace.

Natural disasters, civil conflict, political oppression, commercial development, lack of land tenure or land rights.