Track: Supply Chain Management

Abstract

Xenophobia is a disaster that leads to crime, violent behavior and death as well as the looting of shops and mistreatment of foreign internationals in which their rights are violated. This disaster calls for the need of relief organizations in order to help the victims who are affected in terms of helping those who are injured by providing them with medical resources as well as food and shelter to the victims who have lost their homes and who are in need of help. The ability of relief organizations  to respond quickly to the disaster is very important as it can save many lives and make a huge difference, therefore, disaster relief organizations have to be readily available to assist victims as soon as possible after the disaster occurs.  Gift of the Givers was the first disaster relief organization that initially responded to the crises of xenophobia that occurred in 2008, Gift of the Givers (2010).

The spread of Xenophobia is a literal crime against humanity which is triggered by various factors such as jealousy, anger, and anguish, it is defined as a fear or hatred towards strangers. It has been recently recognized as a disease that will never end in South Africa which contributes to negative publicity of the country on a proportional scale. Xenophobia divides people of different nationalities within a country which then extends to a broader capacity in which different countries in Africa end up been economically and racially divided. The ultimate aims of this research paper were to review the work done during and after the 2008 xenophobia attacks in South Africa by discovering the factors that contributed to the xenophobic attacks and identifying how the government dealt with the situation and what measures they have put in place to prevent such brutal behavior and actions of xenophobic attacks from happening again. Furthermore, the gruesome impact of xenophobia towards Logistics has been identified. In this research, the chaotic xenophobic attacks lead to a decrease in the number of movements of tourists coming into the country which was measured by the tourism industry. Many Foreign nationals were victims of mob violence and those who owned shops had their shops looted and burned down, while their respective family members were badly wounded, killed or chased away from their homes. Based on the xenophobic attacks that occurred in the year 2008, South Africa is regarded as the most xenophobic nation in the world (Steenkemp, 2009). The costs of Logistics increased for businesses as doing business with other countries became difficult as modes of transport in and out of the country became restricted which hampered the daily business operations of many organizations. The United Nations described the reasons of the xenophobia attacks simply as the outcome of social-economic problems in South Africa. The occurrence of xenophobic attacks is a negative event that leads to more problems as it badly affects the reputation of a country, doesn’t lead to more job creation or opportunities for the people and rigorously destabilizes a country’s economy leading to every citizen in South Africa been impacted undesirably.