Lesotho permit: A lifeline for Basotho workers facing collapse of textile industry
Announcement comes weeks after hundreds of undocumented workers were arrested in SA
Lesotho’s coat of arms at Makoanyane Square in Maseru. The announcement of the extension of the Lesotho Exemption Permit comes just weeks after the arrest of hundreds of undocumented Basotho workers in South Africa. Archive photo: Sechaba Mokhethi
- Home Affairs Minister Leon Schreiber has announced the extension of the Lesotho Exemption Permits by another 18 months.
- The announcement comes weeks after the arrest of more than 480 undocumented Basotho workers in South Africa.
- Most of them have been released.
- The collapse of Lesotho’s textile industry has forced more and more workers to seek jobs in South Africa.
South Africa’s decision to extend the Lesotho Exemption Permits by 18 months is a lifeline for thousands of Basotho workers in South Africa living under fear of arrests and deportations.
The announcement came just weeks after mass arrests of undocumented Basotho factory workers in Newcastle, KwaZulu-Natal.
In a notice published on Tuesday, Home Affairs Minister Leon Schreiber announced that all existing permits would remain valid until 28 May 2027. “No holder of the exemption may be arrested, ordered to depart, or detained for purposes of deportation … for any reason related to him or her not having any valid exemption certificate,” Schreiber said.
The Lesotho Special Permit (LSP) system was first introduced in 2015 by then Home Affairs Minister Malusi Gigaba to regularise the stay of undocumented Basotho nationals already living, working, or studying in South Africa. It allowed Basotho to reside in the country under relaxed conditions, granting them work, study, or business rights while suspending deportations of permit holders.
A total of 90,314 permits were issued under the LSP, but only to Basotho who already resided in South Africa and held valid passports at the time. When the LSP expired in 2019, it was replaced by the four-year Lesotho Exemption Permit, later extended by then Home Affairs Minister Aaron Motsoaledi to cover approximately 54,653 Basotho nationals. That extension was due to end next month, before Schreiber’s latest decision to add another 18 months.
The renewal comes amid economic collapse in Lesotho’s textile industry, once the country’s largest private employer. Layoffs triggered by US tariffs and uncertainty over trade deals have forced Basotho to seek informal jobs in South Africa, particularly in Newcastle, where Chinese-owned factories continue to absorb undocumented labour.
“Unlike in Lesotho where people queue for jobs daily, here those who have the necessary factory skills do not need to queue,” said Lebohang Majoro, a Mosotho worker in Newcastle. “They just get the jobs without any documentation required. Supervisors record your daily output, and you meet your employer on payday,” he said.
Majoro explained that delays in passport issuance in Lesotho were pushing more people to cross the border without documents. “People are hungry. Parents even bring their children who dropped out of school to find work here,” he told GroundUp.
Several factories in Newcastle were raided late last month, and many Basotho were detained. Lesotho’s consul in Durban, Rapelang Thuoela, told local radio that at least 486 Basotho had been detained. Of these, 479 were released on condition that they return home to regularise their documentation.
Seven were prosecuted. Those without passports or work permits were sentenced to three months in prison or fined R3,000; those with passports but who overstayed visas were sentenced to two months in prison or fined R2,000; and those with valid passports but no work permits received one month in prison or a R1,000 fine.
Thuoela said he could not talk to GroundUp without authorisation from Maseru.
The Migrant Workers Association of Lesotho has written to Lesotho’s Parliament, accusing South African authorities and activists of systematic abuse of Basotho immigrants, citing arbitrary arrests, deportations, and denial of basic rights such as healthcare and education. In a strongly worded letter to the Social Cluster Portfolio Committee in August, the association’s executive director, Lerato Nkhetše, said the situation of Basotho migrants in South Africa had become alarming.
“There have been numerous arrests and deportations of Basotho migrants, many of whom are perceived as irregular and undocumented,” he wrote. “We have received several reports from these migrants regarding ongoing arrests and deportations that do not adhere to international standards set by the global community,” Nkhetše said, describing the crackdown as “systematic and unlawful measures carried out by South African civil services”.
Nkhetše said they have documented multiple cases in which Basotho immigrants were turned away from health facilities. He blamed the growing hostility on movements such as Operation Dudula, saying its anti-immigrant campaigns have emboldened discrimination against Basotho in South Africa.
“There are numerous reports of human rights violations during arrests conducted by the South African Police Service,” he said. “Migrants are often denied the right to contact their families or seek legal representation, an essential safeguard that is being systematically ignored.”
When GroundUp asked the South African Police Service in KwaZulu-Natal for comment on the recent arrests, the Media Centre requested clarity but did not respond to follow-up emails after it was provided.
Support independent journalism
Donate using Payfast
Don't miss out on the latest news
We respect your privacy, and promise we won't spam you.
Previous: Ramaphosa extends SIU probe into Lottery
© 2025 GroundUp. This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
You may republish this article, so long as you credit the authors and GroundUp, and do not change the text. Please include a link back to the original article.
We put an invisible pixel in the article so that we can count traffic to republishers. All analytics tools are solely on our servers. We do not give our logs to any third party. Logs are deleted after two weeks. We do not use any IP address identifying information except to count regional traffic. We are solely interested in counting hits, not tracking users. If you republish, please do not delete the invisible pixel.