Migration in and out of Zimbabwe pre-dates the most recent wave of migration that began in the late 1990s. Due to its central location in southern Africa, sharing borders with South Africa, Botswana, Malawi, Mozambique, and Namibia, Zimbabwe has been a sending, receiving, and transient country. South Africa has always been a preferred destination for Zimbabwean migrants. In the 1940s, migration was mostly to gold and diamond mines. Migration out of Zimbabwe was largely male-dominated until the 1960s and 1970s when women began short- term migration to South Africa for part time work. In the period leading up to independence, white migration increased as white Zimbabweans – in anticipation of black majority rule – left the country in thousands, dwindling the white population to less than one million.
Zimbabwe has also been a host of labor migrants, not only from neighboring countries Malawi, Zambia, and Mozambique, but also from Asia and Europe. Descendants of labor migrants would become important political groups in the post-2000 era. The majority of black African immigrants worked on farms run by decedents of European immigrants. These
changed in the recent decades. Zimbabwe continues to be a transient country for Africans from as far out as Uganda seeking to travel to South Africa and Botswana.
Aside from emigration in 2000, there have been at least four other distinct waves of emigration in the last century as identified by Pasura (2008a). Between 1975 to the early 1980s, a significant number of white Zimbabweans left the country; many emigrated to Britain, where they reclaimed their ancestral citizenship, and others moved to the neighboring South Africa (Dominic Pasura, 2012). As Tevera and Crush (2003: 6) explain, “between 1980 and 1984, 50,000 to 60,000 whites left the country because they could not adjust to the changing political circumstances and the net migration loss was over 10,000 per year.”
The current wave of migration began in the late nineties as the economy began its initial decline. Forced to leave home because of declining economic conditions, Zimbabweans were leaving their home country on a daily basis. Although Zimbabweans are now scattered all over the world, the top two destinations for Zimbabweans have been South Africa and the United Kingdom. The United Nations and World Bank statistics place the Zimbabwean emigrant population at about four million with at least three million of that population resident in South Africa and the United Kingdom. Between 2001 and 2008, the population of Zimbabwean
immigrants in Britain increased from 47,158 to 200,000, and the numbers would only continue to increase. It is hard to get official estimates of the Zimbabweans in South Africa because the majority of immigrants in South Africa are undocumented.
The constant movement of people within and between countries and their changing legal status makes it difficult to gather conclusive data of who is living where. This is true for the Zimbabwe migrant population as well. According to a UNCHR 2011 report, Zimbabwe was one of the top asylum-seeking countries with over 51,000 asylum applicants submitted by
Zimbabweans living abroad. In 2011, South Africa issued over 65,000 work permits to Zimbabwean employees, many of whom had been working illegally in South Africa.
In the early 2000s, at the beginning of the crisis, the first wave of migrants left the country for the United Kingdom. The majority of migrants were middle class professionals, primarily nurses and teachers who could afford the cost of international airfare and had the networks to allow them to do so. In the late 1990s, most professionals emigrated via official recruitment channels in the United Kingdom or Canada (Chikanda, 2005). Those who did not emigrate using official channels benefited from social networks already established by friends and family in the country of destination. In the early 2000s, emigration had been a relatively simple affair because the immigration laws in South Africa and the United Kingdom were friendly towards Zimbabweans. Until 2003, Zimbabweans travelling to the United Kingdom and South Africa did not need a visitor’s visa for entry. There is very little data available on
Zimbabwean migrants because both the destination and sending countries did not collect good data on entry and exit. From the U.K. data is available for official entry, but there is nothing on exit or those who switched their status from visitor to refugee or permanent resident.
A second peak of exit occurred during the 2005 election period. In 2005, the economy was in a clear decline and the political situation continually unstable. Most of those who left during this time were going to South Africa. Until 2005, South Africa had been a short-term destination for people going to trade and returning home. Great Britain was no longer a favorable destination because of a new visa system introduced in April 2004. Until 2004, Zimbabweans entering the United Kingdom as tourists did not need a visa. After 2004, in addition to a visa requirement, visitors needed to provide additional financial support for their application, and at a minimum applicants needed to prove that they had at least three thousand pounds in a savings
account. Zimbabweans found ways to enter into the U.K. using manufactured documentation, such as fake college acceptance letters, but the laws in the U.K. were tightening, making it harder to enter the country illegally. The U.K. was also increasingly deporting Zimbabweans. Although South Africa had also changed its visa requirements, asking that Zimbabweans acquire a visa before travel, the process was a lot less cumbersome and easier to manipulate. South Africa remained accessible to both immigrants with money and those without. As the economy deteriorated, devastating reports of people who died while attempting to swim across the Limpopo increased.
The peak of the economic and political crisis in Zimbabwe occurred in 2008, and in response to the troubles on the economic and political front Zimbabweans again left their country in thousands, headed to neighboring South Africa and Botswana. The choice of destination is closely related to the financial status of those in the country at that time. By 2008, the economic situation was under such turmoil that traditional economic classification of upper, middle, working classes no longer made sense. Almost everyone was poor and living from hand to mouth. In fact, the wealthiest Zimbabweans at that time were those who had worked in the informal sector selling foreign currency and basic groceries on the black market.