A process of imposing more severe pass law restrictions on the majority of Africans, accompanied by some relaxation of restrictions on a minority, has been continuing since at least the middle of 1979. Legislation introduced in June 1982 at end of the Parliamentary session, and due to be discussed again in 1983 will, if implemented in its present form, greatly extend that process. This review describes the principal developments in the pass law system during 1981 and the first half of 1982, and outlines the main aspects of the proposed legislation.
The proposed legislation is contained in the Orderly Movement and Settlement of Persons Bill. After studying it in detail the Black Sash concluded that it would 'make influx control much more effective' and that it seemed designed to exclude people in the bantustans from access to jobs in the 'white' urban areas. The Financial Mail commented that 'the net effect of the Bill is to give the Government almost total demographic control over urban Africans mainly through the medium of housing and provision of land to townships', and that it provided for more stringent exclusion of non-urban Africans from the principal areas of economic activity.
The proposal of such measures came after successive years in which the application of the pass laws has been intensified and the controls strengthened. In its annual report for 1980 the Black Sash Advice Office in Johannesburg stated that 'We have never experienced a worse year than this one' and spoke of 'the greater severity with which influx control is now being enforced' and of 'the increasing exclusion of black people who live in the bantustans from participating in the economic development of the so-called white areas'. In its report for the following year the same organisation said that influx control during 1981 became more rigid, more people had their South African citizenship taken away and more people became hungry as unemployment in the bantustans soared.
This steady tightening of the system of pass laws is a consequence of the implementation of a policy along the lines recommended by the Riekert Commission, appointed after the uprising of 1976. Central to the policy are measures which make it more difficult for Africans from outside the 'white' areas to enter those areas, together with other measures which give greater freedom of movement to the minority who do already have rights of residence in those areas. Riekert also recommended that the implementation of the pass laws should be shifted away from 'the street', where the police carried it out, to places of employment and accommodation.
The first steps to put the policy into practice were taken in July 1979. The fine to be paid by employers employing 'illegal' or unregistered Africans was raised from R100 to R500. Many thousands of people were either put onto a migrant labour basis with one year contracts, or evicted from the 'white' areas. At the same time regulation of jobs through the labour bureaux system was tightened. A policy was initiated by which preference in employment was given to people who already had rights to reside in the 'white' areas, and there was a cut in recruitment in the bantustans.
In June 1980 there was a relaxation of restrictions on those with rights to reside in 'white' urban areas: those with such rights no longer needed to register with a labour bureau when taking up a new job and were free to move from one area to another, provided they had a job and accommodation.
While the numbers who could in practice benefit from the change were severely restricted by the acute housing shortage resulting from government policy, the change was a significant one for that minority. However the number who benefitted was further restricted in May 1982, when the relaxation was overridden in the case of the Western Cape area by a new law. The new law re-established the restrictive policy known as the Western Cape Coloured Labour Preference Policy (this requires Coloured people to be employed in preference to African people).
The Black Sash report for 1981 notes that 'the effects of Riekert are biting deep. The urban black labour preference policy (not yet officially named as such) following the model of the Coloured Labour Preference Policy in the Western Cape, increasingly means that jobs are reserved for urban people. Recruitment from the bantustans is being steadily reduced'.
However, even though the difficulty of access to jobs is being increased, the pressures of poverty and unemployment in the bantustans are such that people are driven to evade the system of controls.
Some of the consequences were seen during 1981 in the Western Cape with the continued existence and establishment of unofficial ('squatter') townships by people without 'authorization' to be in the Western Cape. The government responded with drastic action. There were over 50 police raids in the second half of 1981 at Nyanga, and over 2,000 people were sent by bus to the Transkei bantustan. An immigration law was used to enforce summary eviction without any court appearance of those deemed to be 'citizens' of the bantustan. When many of the people tried to return physical barriers were erected in the form of road blocks.
The actions and developments outlined above foreshadowed what is now being proposed in the new bill.
- Control at the place of employment and accommodation. The Bill proposes increasing the fines on employers of unregistered labour tenfold, from R500 to R5,000. A new penalty of R500 or six months in prison is proposed, for anyone giving accommodation to people not authorised to be in the area.
- Increased penalties for not showing passes. Even those who couldn't benefit from the relaxations of the kind referred to above, have to carry documents or 'a certificate stating their status'. Failure to produce such a document if requested can mean a fine of up to R500 or six months in prison for a first offence (the current penalty is R20 or two months in prison for a first offence).
- Powers to act against 'squatters' resisting removal. Anyone in an urban area in an unofficial or 'squatter' township can be removed if the Minister thinks that they are acting in a way calculated to canvas support for a campaign to change or limit any laws.
- Control in 'white' rural areas. The controls proposed in the Bill extend to 'white' rural areas, prohibiting any African from residing in them without permission. The government can order owners of such land to reduce the number of Africans living on the land and create 'farm tenement boards' to regulate the number of Africans on white-owned farms. The penalty for being illegally in a rural area is a fine of up to R500 or six months imprisonment, and eviction to a bantustan.
- Use of immigration laws. The use of the immigration laws to evict people from Nyanga in August 1981 was the first time they were used in this way. Under the new Bill this would become a normal procedure. It proposes that a large number of officials of the Department of Co-operation and Development be designated as passport officers with powers under the Admission of Persons to the Republic Act (the law used at Nyanga in 1981). With the imposition in December 1981 of the status of 'independence' in the Ciskei bantustan, the total number of people made liable to control by the immigration laws is now eight million.
Many of the measures described above were contained in an earlier draft bill published in November 1980. It was withdrawn in the face of strong opposition. The present bill has been referred to a Select Committee on the Constitution and there have been strong calls for it to be amended. However it is clear that the measures it proposes are consistent with the developments of the last three years. It is also clear that the government is determined to strengthen its powers to control the movement of Africans from outside the 'white' rural areas and to keep unemployed people inside the bantustans as far as it can.
