Nelspruit, South Africa — Xenophobia against Mozambican and other foreign workers will come under the spotlight at an anti-racism conference in Mpumalanga in early August.
The government-sponsored conference in Witbank on August 14 will hear how South African employers regularly exploit and physically abuse Mozambican migrant labourers.
The labourers, who are often illegal immigrants or underaged children, are allegedly deported if they complain about work conditions or low wages.
Conference facilitator and spokesman Sammy Mpatlanyane said on Monday that detailed reports would also be tabled exposing the extent of racism in provincial schools and on the region's commercial farms.
Recent government investigations indicate that varying degrees of institutional racism are still practiced at 52 former Model C, or Whites Only, schools in Mpumalanga.
Abuses include forcing black or English-speaking pupils to use different classrooms or transport facilities, segregated lunch-breaks and assemblies and different fee structures for various ethnic groups.
Alleged racism on Mpumalanga farms is, however, probably the most volatile issue on the conference's agenda, Mpatlanyane said.
White commercial farmers have been accused of systematically beating, evicting and abducting black labour tenants who try to secure rights to the land they have lived on and farmed for generations.
The terror campaign, allegedly spearheaded by volunteer army commando units in the Wakkerstroom region, sparked the country's first threatened land invasions and prompted local land activists to call for material and political assistance from Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe.
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The Witbank conference is designed as a precursor to the United Nations International Conference on Racism, which is scheduled for Durban between August 31 to September 7. Mpatlanyane said on Monday that SA Human Rights Commission (SAHRC) chairman Barney Pityana and Mpumalanga Premier Ndaweni Mahlangu would deliver keynote addresses at the provincial conference.
"The conference is designed to ensure that ordinary people have an opportunity to put their own everyday experiences of racism on the record. All of these experiences will contribute to our eventual national input at the UN conference," said Mpatlanyane.
Similar preparatory conferences are being stages in South Africa's other eight provinces, where organisers have complained about the low numbers of white participants.
