The Lindela Repatriation Centre, 1996–2014 : applying theory to the practice of human rights violations

• Record Number: iscrime_n66_a5
• Published date: 01 December 2018
• Pages: 41-52
• DOI: 10.10520/EJC-1540438991
• Date: 01 December 2018

41

SA CRIME QUARTERLY NO. 66 • DECEMBER 2018

* Anthony Kaziboni is a political and critical sociologist, broadly

interested in how power is conceptualised and theorised, its role

in society, and the culminating patterns of social change. He is a

social justice activist who is interested in race and racism, gender

discrimination and ethnicity in the era of globalisation, and their

implications on social policy.

The Lindela

Repatriation Centre,

1996–2014

Applying theory to the practice

of human rights violations

Anthony Kaziboni*

anthonyk@uj.ac.za

http://dx.doi.org/10.17159/2413-3108/2018/v0n66a5623

Undocumented migrants awaiting deportation

are initially detained in what have been termed

repatriation centres, deportation centres,

and detention centres. While there is no clear

distinction between the three facilities, they

seem to serve the same purpose: to house

undocumented migrants who are awaiting

deportation. In South Africa, the Lindela

This article is based on media content analysis of more than 230 newspaper articles written on the

Lindela Repatriation Centre from its establishment in 1996 to 2014. This centre is South Africa’s only

holding facility for undocumented migrants1 awaiting repatriation, and the data revealed that it is a

hub of human rights violations. The article juxtaposes the South African Bill of Rights, which

supposedly underpinned the establishment of the centre, with the grotesque human rights violations

that have occurred there since its inception. In light of this, the article draws on the theorising of

Giorgio Agamben (1998), and particularly his theoretical contribution of the ‘homo sacer’ as one who

has been left behind or excluded from the territorial boundaries that confer the rights of citizenship. I

found that the detainees at the centre are largely living in what Agamben describes as a ‘state of

exception’ and that undocumented migrants are often treated as ‘bare life’, as individuals who are

subject to the suspension of the law within the context of the centre. Since they are non-citizens of

the recipient state, these actions amount to xenophobia, which manifests in a gross violation of

human rights.

Repatriation Centre is one such holding facility.

The South African Immigration Act (Act 13 of

2002) authorises the Department of Home Affairs

(DHA) to detain undocumented migrants at

Lindela for the purposes of deportation. The Act

also sets out a series of procedural guarantees

to ensure that the process is administratively fair

and that none of the detainees’ constitutional

rights are violated.

The advent of democracy in South Africa in 1994

brought with it the promise that the Bill of Rights,

contained in section 2 of the Constitution,2

would be equally upheld for everyone in the