Malawian man accuses Malawi Immigration of discrimination

A Malawian man says Immigration officers stopped him at a roadblock on his way to Blantyre and demanded to see his passport as they assumed that he is a foreigner because he is light skinned.

In a video shared on social media, the man complained that instead of introducing themselves and then asking his name or his home village, the officers just demanded his passport.

He wondered if the officer would do the same to a dark skinned person from Burundi or Nigeria.

“This is not good, is it a crime to be a light skinned person? This is not fair we are all Malawians. So anyone who is a dark skinned is a Malawian not a foreigner right, this is an insult,” he said.

Commenting on the issue, Journalist James Chavula described the treatment of the man as social profiling, saying it is a tendency of treating people differently because they look different from a presumed or perceived prototype of a Malawian.

Chavula said such behavior has to stop because people cannot be the same in terms of language, skin color and size because everyone was born different.

“Guard against toxic biases.  This discriminatory habit is criminal. I remember someday in 2008 when a daughter of a sitting president was detained at Dedza Border simply because she wasn’t fluent in Chichewa. The immigration officers, in their bigoted thinking and orientation, couldn’t stomach that a Malawian can speak English with a Zimbabwean accent.

“This tendency of using Chichewa, especially that ka ‘muli bwanji?’ as a yardstick for Malawianness is total discrimination. Not every Malawian is a Chewa like your Chakwera. There are over 16 languages in this country and none of them is more superior to the rest,” he said.