Senior police had the attitude that they were deporting people because this was their instruction, but they would be willing to support a policy which allowed for some degree of integration of Zimbabweans in their area. It must be added that while at the senior level this was the police position given, deportees from Musina reported systematic exploitation by police and army who arrest them. This included having all their money taken as a bribe not to be deported, or in the case of girls, being forced to have sex in order not to be deported - often unprotected sex169. Deportees seem to be as much of a cash cow here as in Johannesburg according to varied sources, and this raises the question of whether it would really be that easy to get the Musina police to relinquish their part of the “revolving door” process. Deportation of unaccompanied minors According to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, it is illegal to deport any unaccompanied migrant under the age of 18, without first conducting exhaustive inquiries to ensure that there is a suitable receiving agency in the country of origin. However, Home Affairs has reportedly been deporting children on a regular basis, despite the fact that South Africa is signatory to this Convention. In March 2004, human rights lawyers making a routine visit to Lindela identified around 100 persons who claimed to be aged under 18 in detention on that day. The Lawyers for Human Rights decided to take Home Affairs to Court and to get a Court ruling on the rights of foreign children in South Africa. This test case took many months, and resulted in a landmark ruling in September 2004. 170 The Court ruled that all children, including unaccompanied foreign children, have full rights in terms of the South African Child Care Act. The Court further ruled that it is illegal to deport unaccompanied minors without first ensuring a safe environment and suitable adult care in their country of origin. The precise fates of the children involved in this test case are currently being decided on a case by case basis by the Court. The numbers of children involved in this case have dwindled over time: many who had claimed to be under 18 were established to be over 18 once inquiries were undertaken. The remainder were held in State care while the case progressed. The girls involved all absconded; their place of safety allowed them to walk in and out as they wished, and they all disappeared over time. The boys have been kept under more restricted conditions, although in a reasonable environment; the remaining number of children is about 14, of which 7 are from Zimbabwe. Individual assessments will be made by the Court, and if it is established that any of the children are orphans with no surviving responsible adults in their families, they may be fostered in South Africa. Otherwise they will be repatriated directly to their relatives. It is not only Lindela that has been regularly deporting minors. The police in Musina do not register children or unaccompanied minors, and they deport them on a regular basis. Knowing such deportations are illegal may be why the police do not incriminate themselves by recording minors. This means that the scale of the problem of unaccompanied minors being deported from Musina cannot be properly assessed. 169 The authors were told about this when they interviewed Zimbabwean sex workers in Musina; August and September 2004. 170 Details of this test case were given to us in an interview with LHR in October 2004. 74