Getting to know our clients

“I felt bad for a lot of the refugees when I started working here too, but you can’t do that,” says Kevashinee. She tells me this repeatedly because I often express sympathy for our clients. Too often, I think. I was told by Tando — who lives among the refugee community and even gave us a personal tour of the neighborhood in order to get a better sense of the population we serve — that the refugees are a tight-knit community, and the moment you express sympathy for one person, word spreads quickly. An intern entering my third week on the job, I found it difficult not to express sympathy for our clients who have been through so much tribulation in their lives. It seemed that the need to develop thick skin is essential, and it appears that a few of the staff members, with years of experience in this field, have become adept at doing so.

But how do I not sympathize when a client from Zimbabwe tells me he was robbed at knife-point of his clothing, shoes and wallet just last week (on the very same street I walk to work each morning after getting off the bus—a frightening thought, I know)? How do I react when a man from Burundi released just yesterday from prison tells me he was wrongly accused by the police for theft and as a result spent the past 5 years in prison? Or when a Congolese man tells me that his employer refuses to pay him his month’s salary simply because he is a foreigner? And what in the world am I suppose to think when I am told by the UNHCR Representative that the woman she just interviewed — a 21 year-old from Rwanda whose parents were killed by machetes when she was younger — was recently raped by three men and now thinks she might be infected by HIV/AIDS but cannot tell her husband, fearing that he would abandon her and her child? Believe it or not, but this all happened today. At LHR, we are daily confronted with these types of issues that leave us shocked and often times, speechless.


Today I conducted my first ‘Refugee Status Determination' (RSD) interview, which also meant an intimate look into the life story of each individual refugee. Sherylle, my supervising attorney, is great with making sure that all of us interns are involved in all aspects of the project; I was nervously excited as she pulled me aside to tell the assignment. RSD interviews – which can be long and draining for both interviewer and interviewee – are conducted when refugees are seeking permanent residence or when their asylum claim has been rejected and therefore needs to request an appeal. The interview includes detailed questions about the refugee’s family history, education, employment, asylum claim, mode of transportation, and current living conditions in South Africa, which is followed by independent research and analysis of the client’s country conditions and interview. Finally with the attorney’s approval, I am to draft a ‘heads of argument’ which is then presented to the Standing Committee or Refugee Appeal Board to determine whether the claim is approved for refugee status. This morning, I learned the life stories of Remember, from Zimbabwe, and Adde, from Somalia.

Remember came across as very nervous and timid when he sat next to me, his legs crossed and hands neatly folded on his lap. As the interview can be tiresome and the mood quite grim as the client recalls memories – often painful ones – stretching back to their childhood, I try to lighten the mood by interjecting with a joke here and there. “Wow, Remember is a very interesting name … is your wife’s name Forget?” (I know, a lame joke – but Remember smiled and I also started to laugh non-stop. So did the other interns who overheard.) Remember spoke thoughtfully about his life growing up in Mutare, Zimbabwe. He is the brother of six siblings, the son of a deceased father and mother, as well as the husband and father of a six year old – his entire family is still in Zimbabwe. After the Zimbabwe government shut down his buying and selling business on the streets, he was left with no job and thereafter became politically active as part of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), the opposition party to the Zimbabwe African National Union Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF) ruling party. Anyone who supported the opposition party faced the possibility of death; this political situation has become even worst today, as the climate of fear and intimidation continues to spread across the country. Late one night in 2005, Remember heard chants and slogans from ZANU-PF outside his home. While his mother answered the door, he escaped through the back window to a friend’s house and eventually to Durban, South Africa, where he has lived for the past 2 years.

Adde’s story is also nothing short of remarkable. He grew up in Somalia, the country that has been ravaged by civil war for the past decade. My mouth literally dropped when he told me that a missile had been fired into his home one afternoon, killing his sister and leaving his brother with a missing leg. Knowing that the instability and chaos of constant warfare meant that he could die at any moment, he decided to run away to South Africa, a 7 month-long expedition that took him through Kenya, Tanzania, Mozambique and Swaziland – with nothing but the clothes on his back. Adde now owns a grocery store in Pretoria, which had been robbed at least three times. “At least I can get a gun after I get my permit,” he said. I don’t know why, but I started laughing when he said that. “So you want to get your refugee status so you can attain a gun? Let me write this down,” I joked. We both laughed about it, though I think Adde was actually serious.

Adde and Remember are desperate to remain in South Africa … because staying in South Africa meant safety and security; it meant that money could be sent home to support their families. They did not want to return to Somalia where the country is facing its worst humanitarian crisis in a decade, or to Zimbabwe where the recent illegitimate elections have rendered the nation unsafe, particularly for Remember and those affiliated with the MDC. We will have to wait to see if Standing Committee or the Refugee Appeal Board agrees. As I prepare my ‘heads of argument’ for both cases, I must admit feeling a bit of pressure as it will be the strength of my argument and research that could affect the lives of two men I have come to respect and admire. How one is able to develop thick skin after hearing these stories I do not know.

I left the office that afternoon with Remember and Adde's stories still reverberating in my head. After work, Brent and I went to the gym – a relatively new facility decked with a pool, a steam room, and many flat screen TVs hanging throughout the building. Afterwards, I headed straight to Europa, a restaurant just a block away from my flat, to use wireless internet. With a warm cup of cappuccino to accompany me, I began organizing my interview notes and researching background information on Somalia and Zimbabwe and reading through the Refugee Act of 1998 and various legislation governing refugees. I ended up staying until closing; somehow, I was energized with a sense of curiosity and excitement. Everything I had learned in my ‘Human Rights and World Poverty’ course this past semester was beginning to make more sense and the stories we read had become all too real.