A/65/222 63. The Special Rapporteur has received information on some promising legal provisions aimed at replacing immigration detention. Information received indicates that alternatives to immigration detention may vary from cost-effective options already available in several legal systems such as release on bail, bond and surety, conditional release, return to custody for specified hours following release for employment, schooling or other defined purposes, to more innovative schemes such as open and semi-open centres, directed residence and restrictions to a specified district. Information received by the Special Rapporteur indicates that examples of legal presumption against immigration detention are found, inter alia, in the legislation of Austria, Brazil, Denmark, Finland, Ireland, Lithuania, New Zealand and Switzerland. 64. The Special Rapporteur also welcomes the adoption of legislation in Panama (Migration Law No. 3, February 2008, article 93), which explicitly proscribes the detention of children. These examples illustrate that States alone or in cooperation with other stakeholders may successfully resort to alternatives to the criminalization of irregular migration or align their laws with international law and human rights standards. 65. The Special Rapporteur welcomes the interest and activities undertaken by international organizations and civil society to explore, together with Member States and other stakeholders, alternative measures to immigration detention as a way to help States improve their compliance with their human rights obligations in relation to the treatment of migrants. In this regard, the Special Rapporteur praises the pilot project on alternatives to detention for families with children who are awaiting return that has been carried out in Belgium since October 2008 as a practical and positive example of greater cooperation between Governments and civil society in monitoring and evaluation of alternative measures to detention. IV. Conclusions and recommendations 66. The enjoyment of human rights by migrants, regardless of immigration status, is a crucial means to ensure equitable human development and social development and justice for migrants. Migrants can play an active role in the social and economic development of host countries and contribute to the development of countries of origin and transit, particularly when their human rights are fulfilled in a manner that ensures equal opportunities and gender equality. Human rights, together with gender and age-sensitive strategies, should therefore feature prominently and systematically as an integral part of the overall strategy to achieve development in the context of migration. 67. Migration governance should be clearly human-centred, and grounded in human rights law, and it should therefore recognize the inherent dignity of every human being, promote equality and the prohibition of discrimination and fully incorporate the principle of equal opportunities and choices for all so that everyone, regardless of immigration status, can develop their own unique potential and have a chance to contribute to development and social progress. 19 __________________ 19 10-47488 See Amartya Sen, Development as Freedom, Oxford University Press, 1999; United Nations Development Programme, Human Development Report 2009: Overcoming barriers: Human mobility and development. 17