South African can claim a proud record of responding to the plight of refugees and asylum-seekers‚ Minister of Home Affairs Malusi Gigaba says.

Addressing the Regional Conference of the International Association of Refugee Law Judges in Pretoria on Wednesday‚ Gigaba said South Africa was one of 148 countries in the international system that had chosen to become parties to the 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees or to its 1967 Protocol.

To give effect to these obligations‚ the country had adopted the 1998 Refugees Act which established institutions and procedures for refugee protection.

The asylum seeker management and refugee protection regime enabled by this legislation was widely regarded as one of the most liberal in the world.

“South Africa currently hosts over 95‚000 recognised refugees‚ and last year received approximately 62‚000 applications for asylum.

“We are proud to be one of the few African countries which receives large volumes of asylum seekers but which does not use encampment‚” Gigaba told the conference.