The overwhelming number of people residing outside country of origin has created anxiety and fear in the immigrant receiving countries over the potentially destabilising effect on the country’s resources. This may provoke controversy because of the fears that they may be competing unfairly with hosts for jobs, housing and other welfare services. Hence, migrants are increasingly becoming vulnerable to racism, xenophobia and discrimination. The justice system protects the rights of migrants. Equal access to justice entails the right of migrants to initiate and proceed with legal matters through the justice system without hindrances. On the side of the state, access to justice also includes the obligation of the state to investigate violations and persecute the perpetrators according to the law. Hence, with this context in mind, this study explored the perception of justice system personnel on the services they provide to non-South African citizens, specifically to Ethiopian Immigrants in the Newcastle area. It also explored the experience of Ethiopian asylum seekers and refugees in interacting with the locals and in accessing justice system within the greater Newcastle area in the KwaZulu Natal Province. In total, 20 interviews were conducted, of which 8 are justice system personnel and 12 Ethiopian asylum seekers and refugees. The findings suggest that the majority of justice system personnel perceive that foreigners are equal in the eyes of the law and get equal treatment as that of South Africans. It was found that the majority of justice system personnel lack knowledge of refugee law and this has been an obstacle in day to day running of courts. The findings also show that language services and Legal Aid are available to locals and as well as foreigners. It was also found that case dockets get lost due to corruption and negligence, and this resulted in impunity for some of the perpetrators of xenophobic violence. The findings also suggested that asylum seekers and refugees agreed that the justice system is fair and that there are good provisions that accommodate everyone. Some, however, expressed discontent and claimed that they faced discrimination. They portray the police as unfriendly and indicated that they have experienced abuse and discrimination. The findings also suggest that police harass and abuse refugees by invading their premises without a search warrant. / Thesis (M.A.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, 2012.

Migration from non-SADe countries to South Africa has become the new trend of population movement in Southem Africa. This research was conducted with Ethiopian immigrants in Durban in an attempt to shed some insights into this new nexus. The aim of the study was to understand the experiences of Ethiopian immigrants before, during and after their migration. In-depth interviews were conducted with 15 Ethiopian immigrants in South Africa. The decision to migrate was mainly motivated by economic reasons. There were many contributing fac tors in making the decision to migrate. These included social networks, cost of travel, accessibility and availability of opportunities in South Africa. Ethiopian immigrants have used different travel routes and entry points to enter South Africa, both legally and illegally. They selected Durban as their destination city because of the availability of economic opportunities and the relatively less bureaucracy in government offices compared to other cities. Various literatures suggest that immigrants in South Africa and other parts of the world share the experiences of Ethiopian immigrants in South Africa in many ways. The findings of this research suggest that most Ethiopian immigrants in South Africa are involved in the informal economic sector. The target of their economic activities is mainly South Africans in the townships and Ethiopian immigrants themselves. This research also found that Ethiopian immigrants have not integrated with the local community. The study further explains some of the challenges Ethiopian immigrants face during their travel and stay in South Africa. Most of the Ethiopian immigrants stated that they do not intend to stay in South Africa for long. Most of them plan to go to economically more affluent countries like the United States of America. / Thesis (M.A.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, 2007.

No abstract available. / Thesis(M.A.)-University of Natal, Durban, 2001.

Par sa différence et par sa similitude, l’homme à la peau foncée interpelle les anciens qui, dès les savants grecs, ont voulu trouver des raisons géographiques et climatiques, c’est-à-dire ‘scientifiques’, à son altérité. C’est le monde romain antique qui a été choisi comme cadre du présent travail. On y utilise un corpus de textes littéraires, historiques et philosophiques latins, considérés dans un éventail chronologique large (du IIe s. av. J.-C. au Ve s. ap. J.-C.), sans s’interdire éventuellement la comparaison avec les référents grecs. Le travail s’appuie sur une démarche lexicologique, avec l’étude des mots latins de couleur et de leurs connotations, pour mener une enquête sur les interactions entre l’évocation de la couleur de peau ‘autre’ et les concepts sociaux, philosophiques, religieux du monde romain antique. On cherche quels sont les hommes à la peau foncée avec lesquels les Romains ont été en contact, qui sont venus dans la Ville, et quelle place ils y ont tenue, restreinte entre quelles limites et vouée à quelles fonctions, avec quel impact sur leur nouvel environnement — et sur eux-mêmes. On sollicite aussi, le cas échéant, la documentation iconographique. On explore le domaine de la littérature patristique, dans laquelle l’homme à la peau foncée occupe une certaine place, et l’on cherche à caractériser la dimension symbolique qu’il acquiert chez les premiers écrivains chrétiens. On retient de manière critique les apports des spécialistes précédents qui se sont occupés de la question (F. M. Snowden, L. S. Senghor), en tenant compte de la difficulté qu’éprouvent des modernes à s’abstraire de leur propre univers culturel, conceptuel et intellectuel pour étudier ces réalités du contact entre gens à la couleur de peau différente dans le monde romain de l’Antiquité. / By its difference and its similarity, the man with the dark skin appeals to the elders who, from the Greek scientists, wanted to find geographical and climatic reasons, that is to say “scientific reasons”, to his otherness. It is the ancient Roman world that was chosen as the framework of this research. A corpus of literary, historical and philosophical Latin texts is used in a wide chronological range (from the 2nd century BC to the 5th century AD), however, in comparison with the Greek referents. The work is based on a lexicological approach, with the study of the Latin words of color and their different connotations, to investigate the interactions between evocation of skin color 'other' and social, philosophical, religious of the ancient Roman world. What are the dark-skinned men with whom the Romans came in contact, who came to the city, and what place they held, restricted between what limits and what functions, with what impact on their new environment - and on themselves. If necessary, the iconographic documentation is also requested. The field of patristic literature is explored, in which the dark-skinned man occupies a certain place, and we try to characterize the symbolic dimension that he acquires in the early Christian writers. The contributions of the foregoing experts (Fr. M Snowden Jr., L. S Senghor) are critically taken into account, taking into account the difficulty experienced by moderns in abstracting from their own cultural, conceptual and intellectual study these realities of contact between people with different skin color in the Roman world of antiquity.

No description available.

AbstractIn the field of Biomedical Optics measurement of tissue optical properties, like absorption, scattering, and reduced scattering coefficient, has gained importance for therapeutic and diagnostic applications. Accuracy in determining the optical properties is of vital importance to quantitatively determine chromophores in tissue.There are different techniques used to quantify tissue chromophores. Reflectance spectroscopy is one of the most common methods to rapidly and accurately characterize the blood amount and oxygen saturation in the microcirculation. With a hyper spectral imaging (HSI) device it is possible to capture images with spectral information that depends both on tissue absorption and scattering. To analyze this data software that accounts for both absorption and scattering event needs to be developed.In this thesis work an HSI algorithm, capable of assessing tissue oxygenation while accounting for both tissue absorption and scattering, is developed. The complete imaging system comprises: a light source, a liquid crystal tunable filter (LCTF), a camera lens, a CCD camera, control units and power supply for light source and filter, and a computer.This work also presents a Graphic processing Unit (GPU) implementation of the developed HSI algorithm, which is found computationally demanding. It is found that the GPU implementation outperforms the Matlab “lsqnonneg” function by the order of 5-7X.At the end, the HSI system and the developed algorithm is evaluated in two experiments. In the first experiment the concentration of chromophores is assessed while occluding the finger tip. In the second experiment the skin is provoked by UV light while checking for Erythema development by analyzing the oxyhemoglobin image at different point of time. In this experiment the melanin concentration change is also checked at different point of time from exposure.It is found that the result matches the theory in the time dependent change of oxyhemoglobin and deoxyhemoglobin. However, the result of melanin does not correspond to the theoretically expected result.