The main recommendation of the commission's report was that influx control of African people to urban areas should be relaxed.

The jobs offered respect and some immunity from "influx controls," the forced removals to tribal "homelands" concocted by white mapmakers.

Madikizela had said "unfortunately" there was no influx control to regulate the movement of people into the Western Cape.

The ANC called for Helen Zille to fire him, angered that he had linked the provision of services to the apartheid policy of influx control.

This influx control was lifted in 1986, thus paving the way for women to begin migrating to urban areas.

Such hostels were established during the years of influx control, a policy of draconian but ultimately ineffectual laws that barred blacks without passes from areas reserved for whites.

"Because influx control was repealed, we don't see the necessity of the hostels," Soweto's Mayor, Sam Mkhwanazi, said in an interview.

Civil rights groups say the measures could herald an even harsher form of influx control of nonwhites than the previous pass laws, which were abolished in 1986.

The abolition of influx control, as the system of pass laws was formally called, has brought relief to a relatively small black middle class.

"Because influx control is gone, the authorities are starting to use other mechanisms," she said.