How African migrant women navigate belonging and exclusion in South Africa
Tamina Steppe is a sociology graduate whose work focuses on migration, gender, and belonging in urban South Africa.
Image: Supplied.
Tamina Steppe
In 2006, Isabelle* left the Democratic Republic of Congo in search of safety and eventually found refuge in Cape Town. Two years later, during the 2008 xenophobic attacks, she was caught up in the violence while returning from a clinic with her baby. Rocks were being thrown, and she watched women and children being beaten. For her, migration did not end insecurity; it reshaped it.
Isabelle's experience reflects a wider reality for many African migrant women in South Africa. They arrive hoping to rebuild their lives after conflict, poverty, or instability, but instead encounter hostility in neighbourhoods, institutional barriers, and documentation systems that routinely fail them.
For African migrant women, marginalisation is often compounded by intersecting identities as foreigners, working-class individuals, and women. This article draws on interviews with African migrant women in Cape Town, conducted as part of my master's study examining how they negotiate belonging and build livelihoods amid exclusion. In Cape Town, xenophobia is not limited to extreme violence; it also surfaces in daily encounters. Women described being called makwerekwere, told to “go back home,” or refused service in clinics, taxis, or shops. Language plays a significant role in this.
Women with accents, or who did not speak isiXhosa, were routinely marked as foreign, exposing them to threats of exclusion from work, loss of customers, and the risk of their homes being targeted. For some, the violence has been overt. Women who lived through the 2008 attacks described experiencing assault and sexual violence. One participant recalled calling the police and being told they could not help her and that she should leave the country because “the war is coming”. These experiences of physical violence continued after 2008. For most women, harm accumulates less as isolated incidents and more as a continuous pattern of exclusion. They often experience this at healthcare facilities.
For example, Patricia*, heavily pregnant and in severe pain, was turned away from a clinic and called a derogatory term. She returned the following morning in a state of emergency. At the hospital, nurses refused to communicate in English, excluding her from care. After giving birth, a Home Affairs official entered the ward and shouted that she lacked the right papers and would be arrested, while her newborn remained in the nursery. Documentation is at the heart of many of these experiences. On paper, access to visas, permits and refugee status is meant to enable rights to work, healthcare, housing, and legal protection. In practice, the Department of Home Affairs (DHA) repeatedly fails to deliver this in a timely or dignified manner. Women described being humiliated, shouted at, and ignored. Many waited years, sometimes more than a decade, for permits, renewals, or appeal decisions. Without documentation, women could not sign employment contracts, and many employers often abused this, using precarious legal status to enforce low wages and poor working conditions. Even women with tertiary qualifications frequently worked far below their skill level as their foreign credentials were dismissed or unrecognised.
Yet migrant women are not passive in the face of their circumstances. Their lives involve a constant, deliberate navigation of risk. Many restructure their routines around safer routes and times, limit their public visibility and use of non-local languages, or operate home-based businesses to reduce exposure to xenophobic attacks. In domestic and service work, where exploitation was often pervasive, many women endured harsh conditions temporarily while developing alternative sources of income, accumulating savings, and drawing on networks to secure opportunities elsewhere. These are not incidental coping mechanisms. They are the sustained, strategic practices of managing and negotiating access to resources and opportunities despite systemic barriers. Belonging, too, is actively built through shared networks, mutual support, and community.
Organisations like the Scalabrini Centre of Cape Town offer skills training, legal support, and language assistance, but also provide spaces where women feel seen and understood. Churches also provide psychological and material support, while friends, neighbours, and informal networks enable women to build pockets of belonging despite their exclusion from broader society. What my research points to is a consistent gap between what South Africa's Constitution promises and what migrant women experience. Dignity, equality, and the right to healthcare are constitutional commitments, but they are not reliably realised in practice. As migration to South Africa continues to grow, this gap will affect more people. Studies on migration governance showthat restrictive immigration systems and administrative delays do not reduce migration or make it short-term.
They produce legal uncertainty, expand undocumented status, and push people furtherinto precarity. Africa Day recognised on 25 May is an opportunity to reflect on the challenges faced by migrant women in South Africa. It marks the founding of the Organisation of African Unity and celebrates Pan-African ideals of solidarity, self-determination and mutual recognition. South Africa’s post-apartheid nation-building project reflects similar commitments, from the Freedom Charter’s vision of a country belonging to all who live in it to the ANC’s idea of “unity in diversity.” Yet persistent xenophobia and the exclusion of African migrants conflict with these ideals. Africa Day is a reminder to take a closer look at the gap between promises and lived realities, and the policy changes needed to bridge this gap.
Sustained psychosocial, legal, and documentation support from civil society organisations remains essential for migrants’ livelihoods. The government should prioritise reform of the DHA by streamlining processes, training staff, and updating systems to improve efficiency and transparency. Political rhetoric that frames migrants as threats must also be critically challenged, as it fuels misinformation and legitimises scapegoating. Meaningful change requires recognising African migrants’ rights and acknowledging their social and economic contributions, rather than framing them as burdens on the state.
*Names have been changed to protect participants’ identities.
*Steppe is a sociology graduate whose work focuses on migration, gender, and belongingin urban South Africa.