Refugee Digest 91 – Migrants, Refugees and Displaced Persons by Peter-John Pearson
The very disturbing events in recent weeks at Stilfontein, around the contested issues of illegal mining and the various abuses that have emerged with regard to those activities, also have a very prominent ‘migration thread’ running through them. Indeed, this has been the case since the very start of the mining industry. The Leon Commission 1994, which looked into violence at three Goldfields mines, stated that “the Commission accepted that the mining industry was locked into the migrant labour system which gave it a control over the labour force”. That pattern still exists; the events at Stilfontein confirm this.
Refugee Digest 91 – Migrants, Refugees and Displaced Persons by Peter-John Pearson