Human Rights Watch calls on the Government of South Africa to amend the immigration law by inserting provisions to protect migrants against arrest and deportation when their illegal status is due to bureaucratic deficiencies in providing workers’ documentation in a timely fashion. The government is urged to become a party to the International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families and to incorporate its provisions in the Immigration Act. The government should also enforce compliance with its immigration and labor laws. The government should ensure that the procedures for arrest, detention, and deportation in its immigration law are enforced. It should also create a system that permits migrants to report human rights abuses they have experienced; hire more labor inspectors; train immigration and police officials to adhere to the law; and investigate and punish those officials who violate the law. The government should remove obstacles from the relevant law to enable migrant workers to receive the workers’ compensation to which they are legally entitled. Human Rights Watch calls on the government to offset the legal disincentives for farmers to provide housing by developing a housing policy for farm workers. The government needs to rapidly devise a housing policy for farm workers if it is to meet its constitutional obligations, which were endorsed in 2000 by the Constitutional Court, to progressively realize the provision of adequate housing for everyone. To what extent “everyone” will include migrants will likely depend on future adjudication. Human Rights Watch also urges the Government of South Africa to address the specific situation of undocumented Zimbabwean migrants in South Africa by devising a comprehensive policy to address the lack of status of this large group. The report is based on a Human Rights Watch mission to Limpopo province in April and May 2006. Because of the historical predominance of Zimbabwean migrants on farms in the far north of Limpopo province and the increasing numbers of Zimbabwean migrants fleeing the deteriorating political and economic situation in Zimbabwe, Human Rights Watch focused its research on Limpopo. Human Rights Watch conducted interviews with farmers and farm workers north of the Soutpansberg around Weipe and Tshipise, and south of the Soutpansberg around Levubu and Vivo, to learn about migrants’ status and employment conditions. Human Rights Watch’s interviews with police, Zimbabwean migrants awaiting deportation, and undocumented Zimbabwean migrants, usually walking on the road en route to Johannesburg, provided information on the process of arrest, detention, and deportation of illegal foreigners. Human Rights Watch also conducted interviews with lawyers (invariably farmers themselves) who advised other farmers on compliance with the immigration law. In Johannesburg and HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH VOLUME 18, NO. 6(A) 4

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