PODCAST: African Dialogue, Effects of Covid-19 on Migration

The outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic, which led to many countries closing their borders and instituting lockdowns, has left many citizens stranded across the globe. Last week, reports from the Malawian border with Mozambique, said over nine buses ferrying Malawian repatriates from South Africa, has crossed the Mozambique side of the border into Malawi, but are now stranded in no-man’s land. Authorities on the Malawi side have apparently not given the go-ahead and clarity, whether the repatriates should be let free to join their families or get tested and quarantined first. Meanwhile the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) says thousands of African migrants are stuck in their countries of destination.

To help us unpack all these Channel Africa spoke to:
Jo Vearey who is an Associate Professor with the African Centre for Migration & Society, University of the Witwatersrand,
• Clayson Monyela is from the Department of International Relations and Cooperation,
• Leon Isaacson is the group CEO for Global Migration.

[This podcast was originally broadcast on Channel Africa’s African Dialogue show, on 9 June 2020: Effects of Covid-19 on Migration.]

About Jo Vearey

Jo Vearey is a Professor and the Director of the African Centre for Migration & Society, University of the Witwatersrand. She holds an Honorary Fellowship with the School of Social and Political Science at the University of Edinburgh, and a Senior Fellowship at the Centre for Peace, Development and Democracy at the University of Massachusetts, Boston. In 2015, Jo was awarded a Humanities and Social Science Wellcome Trust Investigator Award. Jo holds a MSc in the Control of Infectious Diseases (LSHTM, 2003), a PhD in Public Health (Wits, 2010), and has been rated by the National Research Foundation as a Young Researcher. In 2014 and 2015, Jo received a Friedel Sellschop Award from the University of the Witwatersrand for outstanding young researchers. She was a Marie Curie Research Fellow in 2013, at the UNESCO Chair on Social and Spatial Inclusion of Migrants, University of Venice (SSIM-IUAV), Venice, Italy.

With a commitment to social justice and the development of pro-poor policy responses, Jo’s research explores international, regional, national and local responses to migration, health, and urban vulnerabilities. Her research interests focus on urban health, public health, migration and health, the social determinants of health, HIV, informal settlements and sex work. Jo is particularly interested in knowledge production, dissemination and utilisation including the use of visual and arts-based methodologies.

Jo has a range of international collaborations, including an ESRC-NRF funded project with the University of Edinburgh, a WOTRO funded project with the VU University, Amsterdam on migration and sex work, and partnerships with the University of Massachusetts Boston and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine‘s Faculty of Public Health and Policy and Gender, Violence and Health Unit.

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