Social Sciences

Irregular migration remains one of the most contested governance issues in South Africa. As the region’s largest and most diversified economy, South Africa continues to attract migrants from neighbouring states and the wider African continent. Some migrants enter through lawful channels, while others enter without authorisation, overstay valid permits, use fraudulent documents, or remain in administrative limbo due to weak permit application systems. This paper examines the current challenges associated with irregular migration in South Africa through a narrative literature-based review of selected thirty-two studies on migration governance, border control, xenophobia, public perceptions, migrant rights, informal economies, policing and public service access. The analysis is anchored in a multi-perspective theoretical framework that combines explanations centred on migrants, on host-society populations and on the state, and it situates South Africa’s domestic response within the country’s position as the regional hegemon and an emerging middle power in Southern Africa. The review shows that irregular migration in South Africa is not merely a border-security problem. It is also shaped by colonial border legacies, regional economic inequality, South Africa’s asymmetric regional position and foreign policy choices, weak state capacity in sending countries, corruption, poor documentation systems, limited legal pathways for low-skilled migrants, employer exploitation, xenophobic mobilisation and uneven policy implementation. The literature further shows that public anxieties around unemployment, crime, education, healthcare and housing are often attached to undocumented migrants, even where empirical evidence remains mixed or contested. The article argues that the South African government’s current response is increasingly securitised, visible in deportation operations and strengthened border management. However, a purely enforcement-led approach is unlikely to resolve the problem. The article concludes that South Africa requires an integrated model combining lawful enforcement, anti-corruption measures, regional diplomacy, labour-market regulation, migrant rights protection, local government participation and serious attention to leadership failures in countries of origin and a more assertive, rule-based regional diplomacy through SADC that reflects South Africa’s responsibilities as the region’s leading power. Comparison with the United States shows that these governance dilemmas are not unique to South Africa, although they take a distinctive form in a South–South, constitutionally constrained setting.

Women experiencing intimate partner violence may disclose abuse to personal contacts, approach institutions, or use both. We examined the frequency, correlates, and combinations of these responses in Ecuador. The 2019 National Survey on Family Relationships and Gender-Based Violence against Women provided data on 4475 married or cohabiting women aged 15 years or older reporting current-partner violence. Survey-weighted latent class analysis identified groups with similar combinations of six types of personal and institutional contact among 2346 women who reported at least one type. A separate survey-weighted logistic regression examined characteristics associated with disclosure or institutional contact. Across the full sample, 49.34% reported neither. Latent class analysis suggested three profiles among women who identified a source. Focused informal disclosure (41.09%) usually involved one category of personal contact, while diversified network response (55.41%) involved broader personal networks and some institutional contact. Multisector institutional response (3.49%) combined police or emergency services, justice services, and personal contacts. These percentages describe the latent class sample. The multisector institutional response profile represented 1.74% of the full sample and had the highest prevalence of several violence indicators and consequences. Physical and repeated violence were associated with higher odds of any response, and rural residence with lower odds. In a secondary comparison, institutional contact was more common among separated or divorced women reporting former-partner violence than among women in ongoing unions (22.84% versus 9.69%). The profiles show how personal networks remain involved across different levels of institutional contact. Longitudinal research should examine which combinations sustain assistance and improve safety.

Social media platforms collect, process, and monetise personal data on a scale that has made control over personal information a central concern for users and regulators. Research on digital sovereignty has largely addressed this concern at the level of states and institutions, leaving the individual user’s experience of control comparatively unexamined. This study examines how perceived personal data controllability, an affordance of platform interfaces, is associated with control-based privacy beliefs, trust in the platform, and anxiety. A scenario-based survey was conducted with 308 Saudi participants, who evaluated a simulated social networking platform designed to emphasise privacy and user control. Digital sovereignty was conceptualised as users’ claim to self-determination over their data on platforms, with control-based privacy beliefs as one psychological expression of this claim. Stronger perceived controllability was positively associated with control-based privacy beliefs and trust and negatively associated with anxiety. Control-based privacy beliefs moderated the association between controllability and anxiety, which was stronger among participants who held these beliefs less strongly, but did not moderate the association with trust. Control-based privacy beliefs thus function as a boundary condition for users’ affective—but not evaluative—responses to platform design.