PASSOP

People Against Suffering, Oppression and Poverty (PASSOP) is a community-based, grass roots non-profit organisation fighting for the rights of asylum seekers, refugees and immigrants in Cape Town, South Africa. Passop was founded in 2007 by a group of Zimbabweans and spearheaded by Braam Hanekom. It was originally established in response to increased tensions between Zimbabwean foreign nationals fleeing Robert Mugabe's increasingly repressive regime and South African citizens who blamed them for crime and unemployment. PASSOP has had a large impact on the debate around the situation of documented and undocumented immigrants in South Africa, vowing to be a "voice for the voiceless". Passop is an Afrikaans word meaning beware. There are a large number of immigrants living in South. Africa, estimates varying between one and three million. It is these undocumented immigrants, asylum seekers and refugees that are the most vulnerable, most marginalised section of South Africa's population. They are among the most easily and widely exploited individuals in South South Africa and are often made the victims of targeted hate crimes and xenophobic aggression.