Tamina Steppe is a sociology graduate whose work focuses on migration, gender, and belonging in urban South Africa.
Tamina Steppe
In 2006, Isabelle* left the Democratic Republic of Congo in search of safety and eventually found refuge in Cape Town. Two years later, during the 2008 xenophobic attacks, she was caught up in the violence while returning from a clinic with her baby. Rocks were being thrown, and she watched women and children being beaten. For her, migration did not end insecurity; it reshaped it.
Isabelle's experience reflects a wider reality for many African migrant women in South Africa. They arrive hoping to rebuild their lives after conflict, poverty, or instability, but instead encounter hostility in neighbourhoods, institutional barriers, and documentation systems that routinely fail them.
For African migrant women, marginalisation is often compounded by intersecting identities as foreigners, working-class individuals, and women. This article draws on interviews with African migrant women in Cape Town, conducted as part of my master's study examining how they negotiate belonging and build livelihoods amid exclusion. In Cape Town, xenophobia is not limited to extreme violence; it also surfaces in daily encounters. Women described being called makwerekwere, told to “go back home,” or refused service in clinics, taxis, or shops. Language plays a significant role in this.
