The South African Human Rights Commission in collaboration with the South African Police Service, Lawyers for Human Rights, the Roll Back Xenophobia Campaign, the National Consortium on Refugee Affairs and the Centre for Study of Violence and Reconciliation is launching a training programmed for police officials on the protection of refugees and non-nationals.

The programme will enhance the existing human rights and policing programme of the SAPS, which was launched in 1999. Under the SAPS programme 1800 people and 750 trainers have been already initiated into the process. It is hoped to train the 90,000 functional police officers over the next 3 years.

This is the first programme focusing specifically on raising awareness on the rights of the refugees and migrants and their vulnerability. In light of concerns raised of human rights violations during Operation Crackdown, the dog attacks that were brought to the public attention in November 2000 and the more recent incident of the teacher, Sylvia Manda, in Hillbrow who was assaulted based on suspicion that she was a foreigner, this pilot project is a proactive intervention designed to begin addressing the problem of xenophobia and racism in the police. It forms part of the National Action Plan for Strategies to Combat Racism, which is linked to the World Conference Against Racism to be held in August 2001.

This is a development project, starting with the training of border police. The project will expand later in the year to include training with SAPS community police.

Date: 18 April 2001
Venue: South African Human Rights Commission, Boardroom
Time: 13H00 sharp to end by 13H45

Issued by: South African Human Rights Commission 12 April 2001 Enquiries: Phumla Mthala Tel: (011) 484-8300 Cell: 0832883339

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