Our vision is an empowered and integrated refugee community that participates in and promotes a fair and equitable civil society.
South Africa is famously known for receiving the highest
number of individual applications in the word,
221 000 in the year of 2009. Little has been
mentioned of the challenges that refugees and
asylum seekers face in the country, with attention
shifting to the Syrian Crisis and the influx of refugees
into the European Union.
In as much as the Republic of South Africa signed the
UNHCR Convention, and its Protocol, both of which
were domesticated in the Refugees Act of 130 of 1998,
there are still loopholes that exist in as far as the
protection and promotion of refugee rights in the
country is concerned. This is despite the fact that the
country has a very liberal Constitution which is
ranked amongst the best in the world, and which
accords refugees with all of the basic human rights
enshrined in the Bill of Rights save for the right to
vote.
South Africa therefore receives a large number of
applications. According to Home Affairs, the country
received 71 914 asylum applications in 2014 alone.
Between the years of 2009 to 2015, 115 223
applications for asylum were accepted, which
therefore implies that over and above the estimate
figure of about 798 080 asylum seekers there are
about +115 000 recognized refugees in the country.
RLAC mission is to protect and promote the rights of refugees in South Africa through legal assistance, advocacy and public policy.Our vision is an empowered and integrated refugee community that participates in and promotes a fair and equitable civil society.
1. Legal Department Services
2. Advocacy Department
3. Policy Department
4. Skills Training
