Most deportees seek to return to South Africa because they have few, if any, income earning possibilities in Zimbabwe and because food and basic social services are either lacking or too expensive. Sending deportees to their homes is in the interests of the government of South Africa, which for some time has wanted the government of Zimbabwe to return deportees to their home areas to prevent them from immediately re-entering South Africa.45 Human Rights Watch is deeply skeptical of how the IOM’s humanitarian assistance program will benefit Zimbabweans who have been forced to leave South Africa. Moreover, IOM’s past failure to publicly confront and criticize the Zimbabwean government’s human rights abuses in the context of international humanitarian assistance suggests it will be unlikely to defend migrants’ and deportees’ rights should so doing require an oppositional stance toward the government.46 45 Human Rights Watch interview with a South African immigration official, Beitbridge, South Africa-Zimbabwe border, April 28, 2006. Human Rights Watch, “Zimbabwe: Evicted and Forsaken,” and “Human Rights Watch Statement to the IOM th Governing Council 29 Nov-2 Dec 2005 (90 Session),” http://www.hrw.org/backgrounder/arms/arms1205/arms1205.pdf (accessed July 31, 2006). 46 HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH VOLUME 18, NO. 6(A) 16