ABSTRACT

This paper is centred on a critical incident involving the South African Department of Social Development (DSD) vis-à-vis a group of irregular migrant children that was intercepted in November 2017, while en route from Zimbabwe to their parents, who were awaiting them in Cape Town, South Africa. Upon this interception, a South African Children’s Court ruled that the children were in need of protection and placed them in the custody of the South African state, pending their repatriation back to Zimbabwe. Social workers employed by the DSD were instrumental in this process, in the course of which parents were denied physical access to their children. The purpose of the paper is to discuss the ethical dilemmas that arose from this case and critique the role played by the DSD and social workers in its employ, using an anti-oppressive framework. I argue that this framework provides an appropriate basis from which to explore social work’s complex role where they find themselves rendering irregular migrants voiceless, powerless, and, further exposed to interpersonal and structural violence, instead of helping to work out ways of protecting people rendered vulnerable by conditions beyond their control.

摘要

本文的重点是涉及南非社会发展部（DSD）的一起重大事件，该事件涉及一群非正规移民儿童，该儿童于2017年11月在从津巴布韦到其父母的途中被拦截，他们正在等待他们在南非开普敦。截获后，南非儿童法院裁定儿童需要保护，并将其羁押在南非国家的羁押中，等待遣返回津巴布韦。渠务署聘用的社工在此过程中发挥了作用，在此过程中，父母被剥夺了与子女实际接触的机会。本文的目的是讨论由这种情况引起的道德困境，并使用反压迫性的框架来批评DSD和社会工作者在其雇用中所扮演的角色。