The Equal Education Law Centre (EELC), Equal Education (EE), Children’s Institute (CI), SECTION27, Kopanang Africa Against Xenophobia (KAAX), and Lawyers for Human Rights unequivocally condemn the recent wave of intimidation and violence targeting migrant persons, including children, in parts of KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng. Over the past several months, March and March, and Operation Dudula have sought to spread fear and division, even going so far as to threaten schools, which has forced parents to remove their children from classrooms to protect them from potential harm. One video appears to show organised groups camped outside a school in Gauteng as parents fetch their children at the end of the school day. As children as young as 5 years old are being escorted home by their parents, members of the group are heard shouting “away with foreign nationals” on loudspeakers. These acts are not only cowardly, but also strike at our constitutional values and shared humanity.
This is not the first time that these groups have shown impunity and a blatant disregard for human dignity. In August 2025, Operation Dudula members were accused of storming the maternity ward of Lillian Ngoyi Clinic, Soweto, demanding identity documents from pregnant patients to verify their nationalities. The intimidation of children has also been a stated strategy. In September 2025, the then Operation Dudula leader Zandile Dabula confirmed that the group delivered “warning letters” to 11 schools in Soweto, threatening to block migrant learners from attending classes. In the beginning of 2026, March and March, led by “activist” Jacinta Ngobese-Zuma, and members of uMkhonto weSizwe Party, harassed and intimidated parents and learners for days on end at Addington Primary School in Durban.
Real political frustrations unrelated to migration
Keep up with the latest headlines on WhatsApp | LinkedIn
Millions of South Africans continue to face and experience poverty, unemployment, inadequate housing, failing public services, and a public education system that is often unable to deliver on constitutional promise. These frustrations are real, legitimate and demand urgent political attention. Importantly, they are the consequences of decades of apartheid-era dispossession, post-apartheid policy failures, state capture and corruption, austerity budgeting eroding public services, and the chronic mismanagement of public resources.
The education system illustrates this: the inequalities that define South African schooling – overcrowded classrooms, poor infrastructure, a shortage of educators, inadequate and dangerous sanitation, unreliable electricity and water provision, and chronic underfunding in the education sector – have existed for decades and long before migrants arrived in any significant numbers. Importantly, they persist in areas with minimal migrant populations, such as the Metro East district in the Western Cape. These issues are the product of apartheid’s spatial and educational engineering, compounded by government underfunding, corruption and poor implementation.
Research consistently shows that anti-immigration sentiment rises when people feel economically insecure and politically abandoned – not because migrants are actually taking resources, but because scapegoating is easier than holding those in power accountable.
In addition to this, a multitude of individuals and civil society organisations can attest to the very real failures of the Department of Home Affairs in documenting people living in South Africa. The department’s bureaucratic dysfunction affects both South Africans and non-South Africans alike, yet the blame for these failures is cynically placed on migrants, while the realities of these failures exclude people from accessing education, job opportunities, and social protection.
When the state fails to provide clear, accessible pathways to documentation for all who live within its borders, it creates the very conditions that xenophobic and afrophobic groups exploit. It is far easier to scapegoat migrants for jumping the queue when the queue itself is broken: when citizens cannot obtain IDs and birth certificates, when permanent residents wait years for verification, and when the department’s street-level bureaucracy manufactures a state of de facto “in-between” through inconsistent application of rules and no national service standards. The solution is not violence against migrants, but a functioning, accountable Department of Home Affairs that serves all people in South Africa.
We call on political leaders, community organisations, and media to cease using migration as a convenient explanation for complex structural failures. Doing so is not only dishonest, but it is dangerous and redirects legitimate public frustration and anger away from those who are actually responsible and onto the most vulnerable people in our communities.
Safeguarding human rights: Constitutional supremacy
South Africa’s Constitution is the supreme law of the land. It enshrines the fundamental rights of all who live within its borders – not only citizens, but every person present in this country. These rights are not conditional upon nationality, immigration status, or documentation. The rights contained therein are not negotiable and are not subject to the approval of populist and anti-rights groups, community organisations, or any other non-state actor.
Section 9 of the Constitution guarantees the right to equality and prohibits unfair discrimination on any ground, including nationality and social origin. Section 10 affirms the inherent dignity of every person. Section 12 protects everyone’s right to freedom and security of the person, explicitly prohibiting violence from any source – public or private.
Targeting individuals based on their nationality or migrant status not only undermines the rule of law but also betrays the foundational values of dignity, equality, and freedom upon which our democracy was built.
Holding vigilante groups accountable
Groups such as Operation Dudula and March and March are channelling legitimate socio-economic frustration into organised xenophobic violence. Social media has further amplified their reach, allowing dangerous misinformation about migrants, crime, and resource competition to circulate unchecked and at scale. The violence we are witnessing is not spontaneous. It is organised, deliberate, and in many instances coordinated through social media platforms. It targets some of the most vulnerable members of our society – in this instance, children.
We must question how these organised groups are funded. While organisations defending constitutional rights are compelled to disclose donors, groups like March and March operate opaquely. Zandile Dabula (formerly) of Operation Dudula has previously alleged that human rights groups are “funded by non-South Africans,” yet Operation Dudula’s own financial backers remain a mystery. We have seen reports of March and March’s legal representatives making accusations of “mercenaries” and foreign conspiracies in court, compelling civil society organisations to publish donor lists. In the same spirit of openness, it is therefore essential to ascertain who is paying for the lawyers, the transport, and the organisation of these national protests.
Call to Action
We cannot be silent in the face of this and call on the government to enforce the law without fear or favour and hold groups like Operation Dudula and March and March to account. The current crisis demands an urgent, coordinated and principled response from government at every level:
Our demands are as follows:
To the South African Police Services:
• Deploy law enforcement resources to protect migrant communities, schools in affected areas, and individuals at risk of attack. Implement a law enforcement radius ring around any school targeted by the protestors to ensure that any conflict or intimidation happens as far away from children as possible.
• Issue clear public directives that xenophobic violence is criminal and will be prosecuted to the full extent of the law;
• Urgently hold perpetrators criminally accountable. This includes investigating, arresting, and prosecuting those responsible for organising, inciting, and carrying out attacks on migrants and their communities.
Sign up for free AllAfrica Newsletters
Get the latest in African news delivered straight to your inbox
To the Department of Education:
• The Department of Basic Education, in conjunction with provincial education departments, must take immediate steps to ensure that all affected learners – regardless of nationality or documentation status – can attend school safely and without any intimidation or fear. This includes engaging with school principals and governing bodies in affected areas, deploying support staff, and ensuring that no learner is turned away or excluded because of their background.
Conclusion
It is the responsibility of the government to stand firm against these destructive forces. We have seen before where the dehumanisation of ‘the other’ leads. When adults begin to dehumanise children, it marks a tipping point – the moment society starts to lose its moral compass
The Equal Education Law Centre, Equal Education, Children’s Institute, SECTION27, Kopanang Africa Against Xenophobia, and Lawyers for Human Rights will continue to use every available legal and advocacy tool at our disposal to defend the rights of all learners in South Africa, without exception. We will stand with every child who has a right to sit in a classroom – because that right belongs to all of them.
