Zimbabwe, which has a population of approximately 14 million, had recorded 36,822 cases of COVID-19 and 1,520 related deaths as of 29 March 2021. Although there have been reports indicating the use of immigration detention measures for many years in Zimbabwe, in particular for migrants en route to South Africa, the Global Detention Project has […]
Last updated: July 2022
DETENTION STATISTICS
DETAINEE DATA
Countries of Origin (Year)
DETENTION CAPACITY
ALTERNATIVES TO DETENTION
ADDITIONAL ENFORCEMENT DATA
PRISON DATA
POPULATION DATA
SOCIO-ECONOMIC DATA & POLLS
LEGAL & REGULATORY FRAMEWORK
Does the Country Have Specific Laws that Provide for Migration-Related Detention?
Detention-Related Legislation
GROUNDS FOR DETENTION
Immigration-Status-Related Grounds
Non-Immigration-Status-Related Grounds in Immigration Legislation
Criminal Penalties for Immigration-Related Violations
Grounds for Criminal Immigration-Related Incarceration / Maximum Length of Incarceration
Has the Country Decriminalised Immigration-Related Violations?
LENGTH OF DETENTION
Maximum Length of Incarceration for Immigration-Related Criminal Conviction
DETENTION INSTITUTIONS
PROCEDURAL STANDARDS & SAFEGUARDS
COSTS & OUTSOURCING
COVID-19 DATA
TRANSPARENCY
Transparency Score on Migration-Related Detention
MONITORING
Types of Authorised Detention Monitoring Institutions
Institution
Type
Year
NATIONAL HUMAN RIGHTS MONITORING BODIES
NATIONAL PREVENTIVE MECHANISMS (OPTIONAL PROTOCOL TO UN CONVENTION AGAINST TORTURE)
NON-GOVERNMENTAL ORGANISATIONS (NGOS)
GOVERNMENTAL MONITORING BODIES
INTERNATIONAL DETENTION MONITORING
International monitoring reports on migration-related detention
INTERNATIONAL TREATIES & TREATY BODIES
International Treaties Ratified
Ratification Year
Observation Date
CTOCTP, Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children
2013
2017
Ratio of relevant international treaties ratified
Ratio: 10/19
Relevant Recommendations or Observations Issued by Treaty Bodies
Recommendation Year
Observation Date
Human Rights Committee
37.The Committee is concerned at the lack of a fair and efficient asylum procedure to ensure respect for the principle of non-refoulment. It is also concerned about reports of the ill-treatment of refugees and asylum-seekers in detention centres. The Committee further regrets the lack of statistical data on the number of persons who have applied for asylum or refugee status, the number who have been granted such status, the number whose appeals have been rejected and the number who have been expelled from the State Party (arts. 7 and 13).
38.........The State Party should also ensure that asylum-seekers and refugees are treated with human dignity and that all allegations of ill-treatment are promptly, thoroughly and independently investigated and that perpetrators, if found guilty, are punished appropriately........
2025
2025
2025
Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination
42. The Committee recommends that the State party ensure the full respect of the principle of non-refoulement in law and in practice and that it ensure judicial appeal procedures for all refugees and asylum-seekers. The Committee also recommends that the State party develop and effectively implement a long-term strategy that provides a durable solution for the local integration of refugees, especially with regard to employment, freedom of movement within the State party and the possibility of obtaining Zimbabwean citizenship.
The Committee asks that the State party ensure that deportations of refugees and asylum-seekers on the grounds of the commission of
a crime are only carried out in the case of a conviction for grave crimes, in a procedure that guarantees due process, and that no deportations are carried out when the refugee or asylum-seeker faces the risk of grave rights violations, in accordance with the international legal protections of refugees....
2022
2022
2022
Committee on the Rights of the Child
§77. “(a) Take measures to ensure that all children born in the State party have the legal right to be registered at birth with a name, regardless of their parents’ citizenship status and/or country of origin, and that they have equal access to health care, protection, education and other social services; (b) Consider ratifying the 1961 Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness and amend its domestic legislation on nationality accordingly so as to ensure that every child enjoys the right to acquire a nationality.” The CRC also urged the State party to “(f) Continue the Pretrial Diversion Programme and ensure that children have access to alternative disciplinary measures to deprivation of liberty, such as probation, mediation, counselling or community service, and ensure that detention is used as a last resort; (g) Establish child-sensitive complaint mechanisms regarding ill-treatment and torture of children in police custody and detention; (h) Ensure the independent monitoring of places where children are deprived of their liberty.”
2016
2016
Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women
§ 46. "(b) Promote the use of alternatives to detention, especially for pregnant women, mothers of young children and women heads of household, improve the conditions in female detention facilities in accordance with the United Nations Rules for the Treatment of Women Prisoners and Non-custodial Measures for Women Offenders (the Bangkok Rules) and enhance the measures to protect women in detention from gender-based violence, including through regular monitoring and independent and confidential complaint mechanisms
2020
2020
Global Detention Project and Partner Submissions to Treaty Bodies
Session date
18 August 2022
Treaty Body
Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD)
Submission partners
Lawyers for Human Rights (LHR) and Global Detention Project
Session Information
107 Session (08 Aug 2022 - 30 Aug 2022)
Submission type
State Report
Recommendation Impact
Partially
Discussion of impact
The Committee’s Concluding Observations partially reflected our joint submission recommendations. It urged Zimbabwe to develop alternatives to the detention of undocumented migrants, in particular children, and to ensure that living conditions in detention comply with international standards. It also recommended measures to prevent and punish discrimination against undocumented migrant women and girls. However, it failed to call on the State to provide annual statistics on the number of non-citizens prosecuted for immigration-related offences and the grounds for such prosecutions, or to release detainees whose detention is unlawful or unnecessary. Nor did it urge Zimbabwe to guarantee that migrant, refugee, and asylum-seeking children are never placed in detention but instead provided with proper care. The Committee also failed to recommend ensuring that all detention and accommodation sites for refugees, asylum seekers, migrants, and stateless persons are adequately equipped with food and sanitation, or that arbitrary detention practices are abolished and conditions meet international standards. It did not call on the State to ensure that migrants and asylum seekers not charged with crimes are held separately from convicted criminals, or to provide information on whether vulnerability assessments are conducted prior to placing individuals, especially women and children, in migration-related detention.
Observation Date
2022
> UN Special Procedures
> UN Universal Periodic Review
Global Detention Project and Partner Submissions to Universal Periodic Review
Date of Submission
Observation Date
2021
https://www.globaldetentionproject.org/joint-submission-to-the-universal-periodic-review-zimbabwe
Global Detention Project and Lawyers for Human Rights
4th
No
The recommendations from states during the UPR session did not include anything specifically related to migration-related detention or other enforcement procedures. However, our recommendation that the country ratify treaties like the Migrant Workers Convention were supported by several states (Sierra Leone, Mali, Senegal).
2021
2022
REGIONAL HUMAN RIGHTS MECHANISMS
Regional Legal Instruments
Year of Ratification (Treaty) / Transposed (Directive) / Adoption (Regulation)
Observation Date
HEALTH CARE PROVISION
HEALTH IMPACTS
COVID-19
Country Updates
Zimbabwe, which has a population of approximately 14 million, had recorded 36,822 cases of COVID-19 and 1,520 related deaths as of 29 March 2021. Although there have been reports indicating the use of immigration detention measures for many years in Zimbabwe, in particular for migrants en route to South Africa, the Global Detention Project has not found any information concerning measures taken by the government to prevent the spread of infection amongst people in immigration custody since the onset of the pandemic.
According to UNHCR, in 2020, there were 9,115 refugees, 11,760 asylum seekers, and 270,000 internally displaced persons in Zimbabwe. As part of its COVID-19 response in the country, UNHCR has helped install hand-washing stations in the Tongogara refugee camp and supported more than 1,200 children and young people with home-based learning.
The country has ratified several human rights treaties, including the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the Convention on the Rights of the Child, and the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination. However, at the time of writing, the country had not yet ratified other important human rights treaties, including the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment and the International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families.
During its review for the second cycle of the UN Universal Periodic Review, Zimbabwe received several relevant recommendations, including: to “improve detention conditions in prisons and in police holding cells (Burundi) (para. 131.75)” and “ratify other human rights conventions, particularly the Convention against Torture and the International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families (Congo) (para. 132.2).”
Zimbabwe’s prisons are notorious for being unsanitary, overcrowded, and lacking basic amenities like running water in cells. In March 2020, the government acknowledged that Zimbabwe’s prisons, with a capacity of 17,000 had a population of 22,000 people. In consequence, between March and June 2020, the government released 4,208 prisoners under presidential amnesty order. Yet, according to Human Rights Watch (HRW), far too many remained behind bars to allow for social distancing. Lawyers who had visited prisons in Harare in July 2020 told HRW that while masks were being provided, inmates and certain guards did not use them partly due to the lack of information on protective measures against COVID-19.
In October 2020, the Zimbabwean Human Rights NGO Forum and a former prisoner lodged a High Court application seeking to compel the country’s finance minister, Mthuli Ncube, to release funds for prison facilities. The claimants argued that the Zimbabwe Prisons and Correctional Services (ZPCS) failed to comply with basic COVID-19 regulations such as the provision of facemasks, hand sanitisers and social distancing and requested that the state provides water, food, vehicles, COVID-19 tests, and medical supplies. On 2 December 2020, the High Court ordered the government to ensure that every inmate at the Chikurubi Prison gets 60 litres of water daily and ordered the finance minister to release funds for supplementary water and food supply. The Court also ordered the country’s prison authority to separate healthy inmates from those who are ill and to provide essential medicines.
On 27 January 2021, 110 detainees tested positive to COVID-19 at the Mutimurefu prison, one of the most overpopulated in the country. Two weeks prior, a senior officer of the Chikurubi prison died from the virus and 15 guards in that prison tested positive for COVID-19.
Government Agencies
Ministry of Home Affairs - https://www.moha.gov.zw/en/
Department of Immigration - https://www.zimimmigration.gov.zw/
International Organisations
UNHCR - https://www.unhcr.org/africa/where-we-work/countries/zimbabwe
IOM - https://zimbabwe.iom.int/
ILO - https://www.ilo.org/regions-and-countries/africa/zimbabwe
NGO & Research Institutions
Human Rights Commission - https://www.zimrights.org.zw/zimbabwe-human-rights-commission-zhrc-interviews/
Amnesty - https://www.amnesty.org/en/location/africa/southern-africa/zimbabwe/
Human Rights watch - https://www.hrw.org/africa/zimbabwe
