http://www.stuff.co.nz/3941867a21136.html

The Press
January 25 2007

Immigrants looking for acceptance
by Yvonne Martin

KIRK HARGREAVES/The Press

TAZ MUKOROMBINDO: ``We get up in the morning and we go into work like everybody else.
Then, all of a sudden everybody is looking at us.''

Zimbabweans are used to attracting attention on the streets of Christchurch, but controversy about Aids testing and the killing of one of their daughters have left these migrants feeling uneasy in their new homeland. YVONNE MARTIN reports.

Taz Mukorombindo left his Zimbabwe homeland four years ago and is surviving in the cut-throat world of real estate in inner-city Christchurch.

He is easy-mannered, self-assured in his newfound passion for sales, and feels accepted at work.

But when socialising after hours, it is not unusual for this single 30-year-old to be asked by women he meets if he is HIV-positive.

"It's very uncomfortable. This (HIV-Aids) is just another stigma. It's a perception," says Mukorombindo.

He is among 400 Zimbabwean migrants who seem to have hit the ground running in Christchurch, finding housing, training and job opportunities with relative ease.

Hard-working Zimbabweans, black and white, have particularly made a mark in the South Island dairy industry and in trades with critical labour shortages such as carpentry. Many are earning enough money to support extended families back home and have made social networks, mostly with other migrants, through church, soccer and music. They have even acclimatised to Canterbury's year-round wintry conditions.

But the death of 10-year-old Zimbabwean-born Charlene Makaza in her Christchurch home a week into the new year, and concerns circulating about Aids, have flung these African migrants into the spotlight as never before.

It has shown that suspicion about this relatively new group runs high, rumours travel faster than facts and a gulf the size of the Zambezi River still exists between New Zealanders and the migrants.

It has left Zimbabweans craving wider acceptance and looking for ways to bridge the gap through sport, commerce and cultural events.

"It's bad people are learning about Zimbabweans through news stories which are all negative," says Mukorombindo, secretary-general of the South Island Zimbabwean Association, which has a predominantly black membership.

"We certainly don't see what all the fuss is about, because we get up in the morning and we go into work like everybody else. Then, all of a sudden everybody is looking at us. What have we done?"

Myths of the week have included that Africans believe sex with a virgin can cure Aids and that Makaza's death was a botched female circumcision. (She died after suspected suffocation, with injuries indicating a sexual attack.)

"A few people in Africa may hold that false belief (about Aids), but it is not a belief of Zimbabweans," says Mukorombindo.

Female circumcision is still practised in pockets of Africa, despite widespread education against it, but he is mystified why it was raised in this case.

However, the most perturbing perception of all for Mukorombindo and his migrant group is that African refugees are spreading Aids through ignorance, and are a threat to the nation's health.

"It's terrible. People have to go to the workplace and there's a stigma there. We have to set the record straight."

Zimbabweans, including displaced white farmers, migrated to New Zealand in scores during the 1990s. But migration rates sped up as millions fled President Robert Mugabe's violent regime, particularly to the United Kingdom and the United States.

New Zealand offered a bolt-hole to about 1300 predominantly middle-class Africans escaping Zimbabwe between 2000 and 2004. Mukorombindo said a tightening of US policy following the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, coupled with favourable immigration policy in New Zealand, turned heads in this direction.

With New Zealand's humanitarian policy at the time, numbers of Zimbabwean migrants arriving here surged to nearly 530 in 2002, up from 36 a decade earlier.

The decision to allow fleeing migrants to apply for residency met little political opposition at the time because of the crisis developing in Zimbabwe.

But the humanitarian gesture has turned into a problem for the Government, after it was realised that the 1300 refugees allowed in between 2000 and 2004 had not been health checked, despite the Government knowing Zimbabwe's epidemic level of Aids.

In their homeland it is estimated that about 29 per cent of sexually active Zimbabweans are HIV-positive. The economic collapse has destroyed the health system, halted the distribution of anti-Aids drugs and slashed life expectancies.

Of the 1300 migrants, 500 did have blood tests as part of the residency process – 42 (8.4%) were HIV-positive. The other 800 have largely avoided making contact with authorities.

Health Minister Pete Hodgson has admitted the Government erred in not testing the African migrants for HIV.

In August, he announced an amnesty for the rest to come forward, with a promise that those who arrived in the country before September 24, 2004, would not be rejected for residency on health grounds if they applied before February 28.

With a month to go before deadline, 90 have done so. Of these, eight have tested HIV-positive.

The Government is now working on an estimated HIV rate of 20% among the Zimbabweans who came here. It estimated that up to 200 HIV-positive Zimbabweans could cost taxpayers up to $3.66 million a year to treat. Mukorombindo says fear, not ignorance, is putting Zimbabweans off.

"It's the nature of the disease. People are just afraid," he says. "I think this (amnesty) is one of the best things that they could have done for African migrants. We are urging people to come forward."

As is the New Zealand Aids Foundation, which says that migrants and refugees are the second-largest group affected by HIV and Aids in New Zealand.

It has two social workers in Auckland and Christchurch assisting Zimbabweans with residency applications. Getting tested for HIV is a compulsory part of the process. Part of the social workers' job is encouraging Zimbabweans to take up the Government's offer. Scepticism about the amnesty and the stigma attached to being HIV-positive is making that an uphill battle.

"A lot of that (scepticism) has to do with coming from a Government that you cannot trust. As much as New Zealand says `you can trust us, it's fine', there is that grain of suspicion that maybe it is not true," says Laura Jones, the foundation's South Island regional manager. "It doesn't matter that many people have HIV, there still is quite a bit of stigma attached to it. They are very connected to what's going on at home in Zimbabwe. So there's concerns that people in Zimbabwe would find out."

In other cases, Zimbabweans may be living here on expired work permits and fear the consequences of being found out.

The social workers are building relationships through pastors, community leaders and even soccer coaches to try to reach individuals.

"The process for residency is quite daunting because you are dealing with a large government department and there is lots of paperwork and lots of proof," says Jones. "There have been some issues getting documentation from Zimbabwe. The Immigration Service has been really helpful. They will let people swear in front of a Justice of the Peace that they have gone through the process of getting documents and are waiting for them to get there, so they can get it in before the deadline."

New Zealand First's associate immigration spokesman, Peter Brown, says the Government should "actively seek out" those who have not responded after the deadline passes "and do what is necessary".

"Potentially, it could be a huge problem," he says.

But Jones says such comments are unhelpful. "It plays into fears that the Government is not to be trusted."

The global Zimbabwean community is closely linked through the internet. Mukorombindo said people in Zimbabwe sometimes found out about changes in New Zealand's immigration policy before he did. Likewise, as soon as Makaza's death hit newspapers in New Zealand, he was getting calls from Zimbabweans in the US and the UK wanting to know what had happened.

Despite the controversies and the unwanted attention of the last month, Mukorombindo is proud to be Zimbabwean and misses his homeland dearly.

"I haven't been home to Zimbabwe in four years. Sometimes it gets hard when you start thinking `it's not home'. You miss a place where you're accepted, where you don't feel like you're being singled out or having the finger pointed at you and seen as a primitive monkey or whatever."