In schools, playgrounds and communities across SA, children are growing up learning that belonging is conditional. For some, a surname, darker skin tone or accent can mark them as “foreign”. For others, exclusionary xenophobic language is normalised long before they can spell the words.
The result is a generation of children — both migrants and citizens — quietly absorbing the message from adults that humanity can be divided into those who belong and those who do not. Those who do not belong are expected to be silenced and made invisible. This everyday reality cuts deepest for the children of migrants.
They are born and raised in SA, speak its languages, have adopted its cultures and know no other home. Yet, they live under a shadow of exclusion, constantly reminded that their names, skin tone or family histories place them on the outside. They are neither fully recognised by the country of their birth nor easily accepted in their parents’ countries of origin.
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Denying belonging to one group of children corrodes the moral foundation for all. When relatives back “home” tease them for not speaking their parents’ languages, the irony is cruel: they are foreigners in both worlds. In the public imagination, migration still evokes images of adults crossing borders in search of work.
But the real, long-term story is unfolding among their children — the second generation who grow up in limbo, facing deeply uncertain futures. These second-generation migrants are part of SA’s youth who will define the country’s future and its prospects for social cohesion, yet they are often excluded from influencing it. Their experiences of exclusion, bullying or bureaucratic neglect are not just individual injustices; they are early lessons in how society values — or devalues — human life, especially those seen as not belonging.
Xenophobia has become an unspoken curriculum in our schools. When children hear adults label classmates as “illegal”, “border jumpers” or “outsiders”, they learn to measure worth through nationality. In some communities, social workers and educators witness how the stress of displacement, job insecurity and discrimination filters down to children, shaping their sense of identity and possibility.
The cost of this social climate is profound. When inclusion becomes conditional, empathy and solidarity shrink.
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