The campaign, under the patronage of Archbishop Desmond Tutu, will use media campaigns, community conversations, youth mobilization, curriculum interventions and human rights training with a wide range of civil society partners to promote a culture of tolerance, human dignity and unity in diversity across southern Africa.
Supported by radio station METRO FM as a media partner, the One Movement campaign will also have a number of celebrities and media personalities from several parts of the African continent as goodwill ambassadors.
The public will be also able to blog, share their experiences, and download wallpapers, reports and other resources of the ONE Movement through social networking groups including Facebook and YouTube, and through a dedicated blog and website: www.1movement.co.za
The first phase of the campaign will be funded by the US Department of State Bureau for Population, Refugees and Migration (PRM). IOM is seeking an addition USD 2 million to implement the campaign through the next two years.
"While our key concern is addressing xenophobia, we have found that it is only one of the symptoms of a general culture of social divisions that is on the rise in South Africa," said Hans-Petter Boe, IOM's Regional Representative for Southern Africa.
According to a survey conducted in 2008 by FutureFact Mindset, South Africa has witnessed a significant increase in social divisions in recent years. The 2008 South African Development Indicators Report reported that positive sentiments about race relations in the country fell from 60% in May 2004 to 49% in May 2008.
The report also revealed that South Africans are increasingly identifying themselves in terms of ethnicity and language.
The One Movement launch is accompanied by the release of a new IOM report on xenophobia in South Africa which suggests that the xenophobia-related violence of May 2008 did not exclusively target foreign nationals - it also affected people seen as "outsiders."
The report, "Towards Tolerance, Law and Dignity: Addressing Violence against Foreign Nationals in South Africa", partly attributes the 2008 violence to local groups and individuals who initiated or supported the attacks in order to foster their political and economic interests. It found no evidence to support earlier accounts blaming the eruption of violence on factors such as poor border controls or rising food and commodity prices.
The aim of the study, conducted on behalf of IOM by the Forced Migration Studies Programme (FMSP) of the University of the Witwatersrand, and funded by the UK Department for International Development (DFID), was to get a better understanding into the factors that led to the outbreak of the attacks which left 62 people dead and more than 100,000 internally displaced.
The study found that although xenophobia, economic inequality and a culture of violence are endemic to South Africa, the micro-politics of the country's townships and informal settlements largely accounts for the violence against non-nationals and other 'outsiders' which occurred in May 2008.
Broad structural and historical factors such as a legacy of institutional discrimination and mistrust of foreign nationals could not in isolation explain the timing and location of the attacks, which occurred in some places but did not in other places that have similar demographic and socio-economic conditions.
Beyond this broad conclusion, the IOM research identifies a number of common factors that fostered violence in those places where it occurred. These include: institutionalized practices that exclude foreigners from political participation and justice, often premised on limited knowledge of and respect for law; a lack of trusted, prompt and effective conflict resolution mechanisms that leads to vigilantism and mob justice; and the emergence of illegitimate forms of local leadership, some of which seek to enhance its authority by reinforcing the resentment of communities towards 'outsiders'.
The study also suggests that systematic efforts are needed to hold individuals responsible for the violence, together with more concentrated and coordinated reintegration efforts, if community cohesion is to be restored, conflicts resolved and future similar attacks prevented.
The study includes recommendations to help reduce xenophobic tendencies and the risk of future violence including developing interventions to promote accountability and counter a culture of impunity; reforms to build inclusive local governance structures; opening up more channels for legal migration; supporting the government in addressing xenophobic and discriminatory practices in public institutions; and promoting a human rights culture in South Africa.
"By promoting unity and a human rights culture that puts law and human dignity first, and by challenging perceptions, attitudes and behaviours around prejudice and discrimination, we can contribute to ridding the country of both xenophobia and exclusion to stop anything like the May 2008 attacks ever happening again," says Boe.
To access the full report, please go to: http://www.iom.int/jahia/webdav/shared/shared/mainsite/media/docs/reports/violence_against_foreign_nationals.pdf
For more information, please contact Nde Ndifonka at IOM Pretoria. Tel. +27.12 342 2789 or Email: nndifonka@iom.int
