Migration from Malawi to South Africa

Since the discovery and exploitation of minerals like gold,
diamond and copper in South Africa, Zimbabwe and Zambia in the late
nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Malawi has played the role of a
labour supplier. Malawians were attracted by the relatively higher
wages obtaining in the South African mines up to the period of the
decline in mine migrancy at the end of the 1980s. Following this
decline, a cross-section of Malawians continued to emigrate to South
Africa to seek various jobs in the burgeoning informal sector and also
for trade purposes.

Migration from Malawi to South Africa sheds light on
the problems that labour migrants and traders encounter as they are
‘toing’ and ‘froing’ between Malawi and South Africa in pursuit of their
respective goals. It shows that migration, which initially was
exclusively done for wage employment, is becoming more complex by the
day. This is a result of the infusion of elements of commercial
migration, smuggling and human trafficking. The book advances the
argument that the numbers of migrants to South Africa increased in the
post-1994 period partly as a result of mal-administration by the
successive democratically-elected governments in Malawi. This
development weakened Malawi’s otherwise promising economy and
impoverished the rural masses. The book ‘sees’ forlorn hope in the
future of labour migrants and traders, unless the Malawi Government
starts to genuinely have the welfare of the populace at heart! The book
is relevant and accessible to policy-makers, university and college
students interested in migration studies, general readers and migrants,
themselves.