Some 165,000 agents of the National Statistics Organization began a broad counting operation of the population that lasts one month.
Le Monde with AFP
“They will not be able to lie, we are numerous”: like tens of thousands of South Africans, Masechaba Thebe, 33, lives in the street. On the occasion of the decennial census, these excluded enter the count of one of the most unequal populations in the world.
South Africa launched in the night of Wednesday to Thursday a vast counting operation of its population that must last one month, the fourth since the advent of the young democracy in 1994, with margins of error. more or less important.
At midnight, 165,000 agents of the National Statistics Organization (STATSA) have gone with a comprehensive questionnaire to meet those present in the country at time t, “without distinction of age, from race, color or belief. ” For the first time, the census will also be done online or by phone.
In the center of Johannesburg, neighborhood symbol of insecurity in this country that beats crime records, a team approaches twenty homeless elongated on a sidewalk. “In which province are you born?” No answer. “Your level of education?” New silence.
35,700 homeless in 2011
“At what category of population belong to?” Owen Nkosi, homeless 43 or 45 – he did not really hold the accounts – shakes the head of a tired air and recouche. The investigator checks the “black” box on his tablet and will try his luck a little further.
The last census in 2011 had known many failures, some of the inhabitants passing under the radars. In 2016, the South African population was estimated at 55.7 million people.
In 2011, some 35,700 homeless had been identified, the majority in the Gauteng dense and urban province, which includes Johannesburg and Pretoria. Far from 200,000 estimated in a survey of the Human Sciences Resource Center in 2015.
Tony Lissaga, 48, came from Mozambique a few years ago, because in South Africa “there is money”. But all he was able to earn so far is about 600 rand (approximately 35 euros) per week for his mechanic talents, paid to the black. Not enough to fund a rent.
“I have no privacy”
In this corner that smells urine and grime, it declares as a principle do not drink alcohol. But he smokes a little grass. “It’s hard, I need something to forget. Once they know that we are here and we need help, everything will be better,” he hopes to look far. The man lying next to him makes him machinally slam a piece of cloth on his shoulders, the place is infested with mosquitoes.
The police do not delibe them. “What can we do? The post is just around the corner, but we can not welcome them. They are so many in the streets of Johannesburg,” a police officer responsible for ensuring that the census is going smoothly.
A few meters, a man who has dismounted for the night is in the underpants in the street. He shakes a filthy coverage and makes his bed of fortune. Installed by the roadside, some barricadent behind trolleys, others sink into a barda of bags and garbage they sell at recycling against a little money.
“I have no privacy, no place to wash me, it’s not a life,” says Masechaba Thebe. “They have already counted us before, it has not changed anything,” she plans, pulling on her cigarette. In a few words, she tells her career: dead parents too early, a bored boy who puts her at the door, the street.
Passing like a shadow, Xolani Gcobo, who has been going on for fourteen years the streets of Johannesburg, ancient mining city nicknamed “The city of gold”, launches a bad eye at the show that has awakened a handful of politicians and Cameras. “That’s it,” proud South African “,” he launches, the breath responsible for alcohol, laughing bitterly from a national slogan.