Labour migration in Southern Africa to a large extent has been and still is dominated by the economic interests of the South African mining capital. This article gives a brief historical account of the gradual introduction of labour migration, controlled by the political authorities, in the last two decades of the 111″ century in South Africa. Based on British colonial strategies, taxation, recruiting and land allocation measures were taken in order to force the native black population into wage labour. Labour migration in Southern Africa therefore not in the first place results from economic and social “pull“ and “push“ factors, as in other regions, but comes close to forced labour.
