Ms Rosemary Kunene:

-----or members of the local community working with the residents. The manager of the centre I am in will say everything is perfect and well, but things are not okay. One will be shown the kitchen and people cooking but, in the centre I am in, mothers are struggling to cook their meals because they have got small babies they cannot bring into the kitchen. By the time they find someone to mind their babies, the kitchen is closed. If one visits during the day, one finds the kitchen is functional and one will have the impression that everyone is cooking.

If one visits, one will be told the centre provides transport, but our transport is being provided by the private sector also. Therefore, we have to beg. We try to keep active as much as we can. I tried to register a couple of people for the upcoming local elections. The vote is one of the only rights we have and we need to use it. We register the people and ask for a bus to take us to vote. I was told the bus would pick people up at 10 a.m., leave them at the polling station and pick them up at 11 a.m. The polling station is less than ten minutes away. Emo is not a busy place so one can vote quickly and come out within five minutes. Therefore, people have to wait for 40 minutes. I asked one of the employers why the bus was not sent at about 11 a.m. and sent again to pick people up around 11.30 a.m. The response is that the centre is not obliged to provide the transport and is just doing people a favour. I was upset and made a point about treatment. I said that if transport is provided as it was, no one will want to get on a bus, and the staff will say people do not want to be active.

Asylum seekers cannot be integrated because they are not legal in the country, but they are staying in the system for five years. It would make sense if they were in it for only a year.