{"id":376199,"date":"2020-02-24T08:30:31","date_gmt":"2020-02-24T06:30:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=376199"},"modified":"2020-02-24T08:16:35","modified_gmt":"2020-02-24T06:16:35","slug":"more-south-africans-are-applying-to-become-refugees-in-australia-and-some-are-being-approved","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/lifestyle\/376199\/more-south-africans-are-applying-to-become-refugees-in-australia-and-some-are-being-approved\/","title":{"rendered":"More South Africans are applying to become refugees in Australia – and some are being approved"},"content":{"rendered":"

A growing number of South Africans are applying to live in Australia through protection and humanitarian visas, The Australian<\/a><\/strong> reports.<\/p>\n

In 2018, Australian home affairs minister Peter Dutton in March said that white farmers from South Africa should get fast-tracked entry<\/a><\/strong> into the country on humanitarian grounds.<\/p>\n

According to Dutton, white farmers face ‘horrific circumstances’ in South Africa, following reports that they are murder targets, and amid concerns of land grabs following a recent proposal for \u2018land expropriation without compensation\u2019.<\/p>\n

“If you look at the footage and read the stories, you hear the accounts, it\u2019s a horrific circumstance they face,” Dutton said.<\/p>\n

These comments led to 220 claims for humanitarian visas made in the last two years – almost triple the previous rate. South Africans had previously made just 350 applications for humanitarian visas from 2008 to 2017, an average of 35 per year.<\/p>\n

However, most of the visa applications have so far been denied on the grounds that violence in South Africa is ‘widespread, random and opportunistic’ – and not specific to a certain group.<\/p>\n

Of the 570 humanitarian visa applications since 2008, 41 were granted<\/strong> and 340 are still to be finalised, The Australian reported.<\/p>\n

Protection visa applications have also failed with 97 rejected in the past three months.<\/p>\n

Speaking to The Daily Mail<\/a><\/strong>, am Australian Home Affairs spokesperson said that anyone who makes a claim for protection will be considered under the humanitarian program and that there are many other visas available to South Africans such as the skilled, temporary and family visas.<\/p>\n

“Almost 80,000 visas have been granted to South Africans since July 2018, allowing them to come to Australia,” the spokesperson said.<\/p>\n

“South Africa is the 9th largest source country of permanent migrants in Australia.”<\/p>\n

\n

Read: You need 70 points to get the UK\u2019s new skills visa \u2013 here\u2019s how you\u2019ll be scored<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A growing number of South Africans are applying to live in Australia through protection and humanitarian visas.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":127411,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9876],"tags":[26],"class_list":["post-376199","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lifestyle","tag-headline"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/376199","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=376199"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/376199\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":376301,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/376199\/revisions\/376301"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/127411"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=376199"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=376199"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=376199"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}