I am both honoured and excited to be here with you for today’s dialogue.

I will tell you why.

As Minister of Home Affairs, international migration is a core part of my work, alongside civic services, which encompasses all the civil registration services we provide to our citizens, such as registration of births, identity documents, marriages and deaths.

I engage constantly on international migration issues with all sorts of stakeholders: South African and international; ordinary citizens; tourists; business people; investors; diplomats and ambassadors; NGOs; counterparts in foreign governments.

These engagements are necessary and often productive, but they do not satisfy the idealist in me, in several key respects.

Firstly, they tend to be reactive.

They are often about responding to some challenge or opportunity which has presented itself, most often a challenge if we are honest.

Second, they tend to be narrow and self-interested.

Most of these stakeholders are interested only in their specific interests and perspectives, and remain oblivious and uninterested in the interests and perspectives of other stakeholders.

They often never see or are even interested in the bigger, broader picture.

Their interests and hence views are often myopic and fail to provide comprehensive, all-encompassing solutions that take into consideration all angles, all views and the totality of the issues.

Home Affairs must balance the imperatives of our national development and security, as well as our international obligations in the management of international migration.

We must balance between and within these concerns; address one without compromising the others.

To be exact, as we try to address security risks, we must not unduly compromise economic development and international obligations, and vice versa.

We balance within these concerns, as various elements of society have different views on how best to maximize each of these imperatives.

Some in our society emphasize the ability of business easily to import skills critical to our economic development.

Others may argue that unlimited importation of skills undermines economic development as some businesses and other institutions too often prefer employing foreign nationals, variously:

• to pay less than the market wage;

• to easily acquire skills rather than develop them locally through training, apprenticeship and mentorship; or

• to undermine the spirit of transformation by avoiding employing previously disadvantaged South Africans.

We must balance these perspectives and find the middle ground which allows us to access the global skills pool, while ensuring we do not overlook development of South African human capital.

In undertaking this balance, as we always have to consider the bigger picture, we know that often we leave some stakeholders very unhappy if not outright angry at the balance we strike as they feel the untrammelled pursuit of their own objectives is compromised.

The current discourse on the visa regulations, for instance, is such a practical demonstration of the balancing challenge we often face when the powerful forces feel they have an untrammelled right to pursue their interests against the powerless, vulnerable and voiceless children and poor families whose children are or stand a high chance to become the victims of trafficking.

Nonetheless, we must still, in the face of all that opposition which often degenerates into personal slander and derision, strike this balance in the national interest.

Finally, it becomes obvious in many of these engagements that many of us remain fixed in our beliefs, assumptions and mindsets as regards international migration, and are unwilling to open our minds to new perspectives, approaches and possibilities.

So I am particularly appreciative of the opportunity to participate in a dialogue with you, young people, on an issue which Peter Sutherland – the United Nations Special Representative of the Secretary-General for International Migration – has called, “the moral, political and economic issue of our time”^[1].

International migration is an essential part of the human experience.

Throughout human history people have migrated voluntarily and involuntarily.

There are as many as 250 million international migrants in the world today.

These are real people, with real potential positively to contribute to their destination societies and countries of origin, with real challenges and vulnerabilities, living and working side-by-side with citizens in every country in the world.

They cannot be ignored, they cannot be wished away.

Nor should they, for who can say as a matter of fact: that their country has not been shaped by international migration, that they have not been positively impacted by international migration, and that they, or their loved ones, have never, or will never seek to live, study or work in another country?

International migration as a moral issue has perhaps been most starkly illustrated by the harrowing journey across the Mediterranean, braved by African and Middle Eastern migrants fleeing deprivation, political persecution and conflict in their home countries or the recent attempts by African and Syrian migrants to cross the Eurotunnel in Calais from France to Britain.

A September 2014 report by IOM, the International Office on Migration, stated that 40,000 mainly young people have died making this crossing since the year 2000, while a further 3,000 died in the Sahara Desert and Indian Ocean.

This echoes painfully those African migrants forcefully uprooted from the African continent during that abhorrent barbaric period of the slave-trade who died crossing the Atlantic Ocean, devoured by vicious seas, never to return to the land of their birth or see the lands to which they were to be sold into slavery.

Africa deserves better; African people deserve much, much better!

Our consciousness and political will must respond to this tragedy.

In this regard, I wish to make five firm points: that is,

1. The Calais crisis is of the EU’s own making, whether one considers the Syrian crisis or Libya, with the killing of Gadaffi and the creation of a clearly failing state (in Libya);

2. The EU’s migration policy is an unmitigated disaster and there is an urgent need for a sustainable and more comprehensive policy that is not informed by racism, narrow nationalism and right-wing inspired xenophobia. The EU approach of throwing money into the problem does not work; what is needed is the provision of assistance to sending countries and regions so that they stabilise, democratise and develop on their own basis, rather than EU basis;

3. The EU needs to respond to these crises as a region, rather than individual countries often inspired by right-wing xenophobia or antipathy towards African migrants;

4. Migration policy is very much related to a country’s or region’s international relations policy. Your migration policy must be informed by your foreign policy, which, in the EU’s case, are both disastrous as they encourage disruption abroad and shutting down your borders at home; and

5. It is very instructive that in the wake of all these crises the EU has not sought constructive dialogue with Africa, in particular, through the African Union, to find sustainable and durable solutions. Their regional responses are failing.

The Financial Times (01-02 August 2015) editorial makes the following scathing remark, that the European Union lacks vision in the wake of the Calais crisis, saying:

“The sharing of migrants across member states, the processing of asylum claims, the creation of legal routes into Europe – there should be a pan-European co-ordination of this. Instead, there is a dog’s breakfast of national policies, some more enlightened than others. Europe needs a sense of perspective, … The continent should also lift its sights and take the long view. Governments invest too much hope in technical fixes: a security measure here, a raid on people-traffickers there. The real problem is structural. As long as chaos reigns close to Europe, people will risk their lives to come here. The solution to the migrant problem lies at the source.”

Africa’s youth, as precious human beings with enormous creative and productive potential, should be at the forefront of the continent’s economic and social development, not being cruelly swallowed by the implacable waters and deserts while fleeing man-made dysfunction in their homelands.

International migration is a political issue in many societies, as we have ourselves seen recently.

It is a cross-cutting issue, which touches on: issues of belonging, citizenship and human rights; civil registration; law and order; access to services; business competitiveness; and wages and conditions of employment, among other issues.

Immigrants often become convenient scapegoats for disaffected members of society and the focus of divisive politics, as seen in the USA, UK, Germany and great parts of the EU.

Economically, international migration presents enormous opportunities.

Countries around the world vie with one another to attract international students, tourists, skilled workers and investors.

Regions and continents, such as SADC and the AU, both of which we are proud and committed members, are cooperating on efforts to ease the movement of people as a key element of economic and political integration.

International migration is a key enabler of development as well.

Migrants around the world are expected to send $440 billion in remittances to their home countries, which is three times the total amount of development aid given by wealthy countries to their developing counterparts in 2014.

These are just a few of the global moral, political and economic implications of international migration.

South Africa is not alone in grappling with these issues.

We are at the advanced stages of developing a new Green Paper on International Migration, the better to equip South Africa to manage the opportunities and challenges presented by this inevitable phenomenon.

Through this process, we are determined to develop forward-looking solutions, based on a management approach rather than one which views migration primarily as a threat to be limited or controlled.

This policy will be based on facts and international best practice, not anecdotes and emotions.

International migration is an area which is constantly beset by myth and distortion.

The 2011 Census found that there were 2.2 million foreign-born people residing in South Africa, which is approximately 4% of our population.

The comparable figure is 12% in the UK and France, 20% in Canada, and 27% in Switzerland!

In this context, can a cosmopolitan, indeed Afro-politan regional centre such as South Africa, which aspires to play a leadership role in an integrated African continent, see itself as inundated by immigrants when they represent only 4% of our population?

The new policy will be based on a ‘whole-of-government, whole-of-society’ and regional approach, as we are convinced international migration is a broad, complex and far-reaching a phenomenon which affects and requires considered action from across all tiers of government, all sectors of society and which requires a pan-African approach.

We will re-imagine the role international migration can play in our society and economy.

As part of this effort, we have convened several roundtables and a colloquium to solicit the views and perspectives of international migration experts, scholars and stakeholders.

This dialogue is thus an opportunity for Home Affairs to engage with one of the most critical sectors of our society, the youth, and feed your perspectives into our policy development process.

I spoke earlier about the limitations of some societal engagement on international migration.

Youth are always associated with progressive social change, in all societies; they tend to be less wedded to the past, less invested in the status quo, more idealistic, more naturally inclined to social justice, more open minded, and more willing to imagine the way things could be, rather than be constrained by the way things are.

These qualities are especially necessary and relevant to the discourse on international migration in particular and re-imagining our future in general.

Without pre-empting your deliberations today, I hope you will provide much needed leadership to this discourse, in this forum and beyond.

I hope you will help us move from a zero-sum mentality where we view immigrants working in the country as taking opportunities from South Africans, to one which recognizes that immigrants help us grow our economy and create jobs through their contributions as purchasers of South African goods, entrepreneurs, employers,  employees and taxpayers.

I hope you will help us shift attitudes rooted in ignorance and fear of the other, to attitudes of humanist and Pan-Africanist solidarity, rooted in the values of Ubuntu, the Freedom Charter, and the Constitution.

I hope you will reframe the nation-building debate, from one which seeks to unite Africans, coloureds, Indians and whites, to one which expands to include those new South Africans from all over the African continent and the world.

I hope you will recognize that our world is one based on vast, deep and complex human connections, and that those societies which harness these positively will be more stable, dynamic and prosperous than those which resist, distrust and turn away from these connections.

I hope you will insist that our society acknowledges the enormous positive role that the immigrants play in our society on a daily basis, and not fixate on the few who break the law.

I hope through your real world experiences, you will inject much needed sanity and perspective into our migration discourse.

I hope you will remind society that crime is no more wrong when the perpetrator is an immigrant, and no less wrong when the perpetrator is South African.

I hope you will explode a debate which seems to be based on the assumption that South Africans are not migrants, by emphasizing that you too may one day live, work or study in another country, and would like to be treated humanely, welcomed warmly and integrated socially in your destination countries.

Actually, we must as a society encourage our youth to study and work abroad, even as temporary migrants, so that they can gain international exposure, forge international experiences and connections that can integrate South Africa into the global community of nations and help us develop as a result of those international connections.

I hope you will help us think of possibilities we are only dimly aware of.

I hope you will help us move beyond the status-quo, by imagining a South Africa of the future, which is big enough to accommodate all those people of good faith who wish to come here and experience the unique beauty, vibrancy, and humanity of our country.

I look forward to today’s deliberations.

I thank you.