Q&A: Denying Antiretrovirals To Migrants Hurts Us All

Interview with Joanna Vearey, Forced Migration Project, Univ. of Witswatersrand

JOHANNESBURG, Jul 15 2008 (IPS) – South Africa has become a destination for people from across the continent and beyond. But in spite of migrants having a legal right to free antiretroviral treatment (ART) for HIV, they are being turned away from government clinics.

Joanna Veary Credit:

Ensuring the right to ART is upheld for foreign migrants living in South Africa would go a long way to helping them maintain a livelihood, which in turn would enable them to continue to make a contribution to the economy and the social fabric of the country.

On paper, South Africa has a protective, integrative urban refugee policy, which affords particular rights through protective legislation to refugees and asylum seekers but the practice is very different. Many refugees, asylum seekers and undocumented migrants struggle to access the rights to which they are entitled, including employment, housing and basic healthcare.

The refugee policy facilitates freedom and protection through enabling the temporary integration of refugees into local communities. Displaced people are expected to become self-sufficient through earning a living and integrating with the community.

Only a small but important number of migrants in South Africa are refugees or asylum seekers; the majority are in the country on visitor s visas. But everyone in South Africa has access to basic health care, including emergency treatment. For a time it was unclear whether this included access to free ART, but this was clarified by a September 2007 Department of Health directive which stated that South African booklets are not required to qualify for free public sector ART.

IPS reporter Kathryn Strachan spoke with researcher Joanna Vearey about the link between international migrants access to ART and their ability to sustain a survivalist livelihood, which Vearey finds is essential in enabling migrants to remain self-reliant and to integrating into urban life.
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