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- Amend the immigration law to protect migrants who fall
into irregular status because government bureaucracies and agents
responsible for workers’ documentation fail to implement the law and carry
out their functions.
- Enforce the procedures for arrest, detention, and deportation
by introducing a system for undocumented migrants and co-workers to report
officials who engage in unlawful procedures of arrest, detention, and
deportation, by further training of officials in the relevant legal
procedures, and by investigating and punishing those officials who violate
the law.
- Enforce compliance with the basic conditions of employment
law by expanding the labor inspectorate, establishing a hotline for
workers’ complaints about alleged labor law violations, and creating
incentives for nongovernmental organizations to assist with monitoring and
enforcing labor laws.
- Amend the workers’ compensation law to ensure migrant
workers’ access to compensation.
- Devise a housing policy for farm workers to meet the
government’s constitutional obligations, as specified by the Constitutional Court in 2000, to progressively realize the provision of adequate housing.
- Ratify the International Covenant on Economic, Social and
Cultural Rights signed in 1994.
- Sign and ratify the International Convention on the
Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their
Families and amend domestic laws accordingly. At minimum, the Immigration
Act should be amended to include provisions to:
o
grant foreign workers tied in terms of their work permits to a
specific remunerative activity freedom of choice in jobs after they have
resided in the host country lawfully for a specified period (Article 52);
o
grant migrant workers (documented and undocumented) who get
deported a reasonable opportunity before or after departure to settle any
claims for wages and other entitlements and any pending liabilities (Article
22(6)); and
o
grant migrant workers (documented and undocumented), upon the
termination of their stay in South Africa, the opportunity to transfer their
earnings, savings, and personal effects and belongings (Article 32).
- Address the particular situation of undocumented
Zimbabwean migrants by developing a comprehensive approach to the
multifaceted problems and human rights abuses arising from their lack of
status, and holding discussions with the Government of Zimbabwe about
measures to address the conditions that contribute to migration to South Africa.
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