Recommendations “We need to work together as Africans to solve our problems” 1) It is in South Africa’s economic, security and social stability interests to continue to make significant political investment in stabilising the political turmoil that plagues countries in SADC, which make up the greatest number of asylum seekers in South Africa. 2) The South African DHA has an obligation to provide a greater number of RROs and to ensure that these are run efficiently, so that all asylum seekers have timeous access to an official, enabling them to apply, acquire or to renew asylum documents without punitive queues and bribery. The self admitted flaws in the documentation process are reason enough to halt arrests, detentions and deportations until these flaws have been corrected. 3) Children ought to be considered foremost as children and not as migrants of any type.2Unaccompanied foreign minors are required by South African law to be given access to education, health care and safety – the same rights as South African children. 4) The verification/screening system must be improved upon if there is any hope of reducing the number of innocent detentions and deportations, and minimizing the risk of law suits. Civil society could play a pivotal role in this process if they were allowed access to detainees. 5) Efficient independent monitoring needs to be reinstituted. No independent monitoring has been permitted since 2009 when the monitoring being conducted by the Forced Migration Studies Programme at the University of the Witwatersrand was halted midway through their research.3The only independent body that does have permission to monitor conditions at Lindela, is the South African Human Rights Commission. The SAHRC are in fact mandated to oversee and conduct external monitoring of immigration detention facilities, but according to LHR, their monitoring up until now has been “haphazard and infrequent". 6) South Africa should adopt the Optional Protocol to the Convention against Torture and other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (OPCAT). This would allow for independent monitoring of immigration detention centres. 7) The South African Government should consider reinstating the Zimbabwean Dispensation Project and once more declaring a moratorium on deportations until after an election in Zimbabwe. Furthermore the department should extend the dispensation to all African countries until the number of undocumented immigrants 2 LHR. “Global Report and Campaign to End Immigration Detention of Children to be Launched at UN Human Rights Council.” 21 March 2012. http://www.lhr.org.za/news/2012/global-report-and-campaignend-immigration-detention-children-be-launched-un-human-rights-. See full IDC report at www.idcoalition.org/ccap. 3 Amit, R. (2010). Lost in the Vortex: Irregularities in the Detention and Deportation of Non-Nationals in South Africa. FMSP Research Report. Johannesburg: African Centre for Migration & Society. 1-76. 7