World Human Rights Day: South Africa’s shameful record laid bare

Today is World Human Rights Day, and on this day in 1948, the United Nations General Assembly adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR).

But, for a country with one of the worlds most progressive constitutions protecting human rights and dignity, the lived reality for South Africans can be likened to the Hunger Games.

Hunger Games in the time of Covid-19 

A scathing assessment from Amnesty International shows just how devastating the Covid-19 pandemic has been for human rights, specifically for South Africans.

“We have witnessed the world panic, change, and adapt to an unprecedented health crisis that has left many without access to their basic human rights,” said the body in a statement.

Hospitals, schools, communities and businesses have taken strain as just over 90,000 have lost their lives in South Africa, and almost 5.3 million deaths are observed worldwide. 

South Africa has officially entered the fourth wave of the pandemic, with less than 30% of the population fully vaccinated. 

“Unfortunately, a pandemic did not halt the global community’s rights abuses with vaccines being siphoned off by richer countries while developing countries scrambled, begged and pleaded for vaccines at affordable prices,” said Amnesty International South Africa’s executive director Shenilla Mohamed.

Rich countries have also isolated Africa with travel bans that have had a devastating knock-on effect on these countries economies despite the World Health Organization advising against travel bans and lobbying for mass vaccination.

South Africa’s dismal GBV track record

The pandemic in South Africa saw the increased use of excessive and lethal force by security agencies when enforcing the lockdowns.

But, we saw the state’s outright failure to protect its citizens, businesses and property rights during the July unrest.

There’s also a high number of cases of gender-based violence (GBV) and xenophobic social media campaigns.

“South Africa continues to display some of the most pervasive and extreme levels of GBV.

It permeates political, economic and social structures of society, cuts across all divides and impacts all aspects of life,” said Mohamed. 

The recent quarterly crime statistics painted a dismissal picture of what is happening in South Africa, with most crimes increasing.

The total number of sexual offences had increased by 4.7% between July and September. There were over 13,000 domestic violence cases in the same three-month period.

“It is clear that South Africa is not a safe place for everyone who lives here. The police must protect the rights to life and security. These stats show that they are failing to fulfil this obligation.” 

Education inequality

Children in the public education system have also faced significant inequalities and hardships.

In February, Amnesty International released its report, Failing to learn the lessons? The impact of Covid-19 on a broken and unequal education system, which showed how the pandemic had plunged South Africa’s schools further into crisis, exposing how the country’s education system continues to be shaped by the legacy of apartheid.

While children from more affluent backgrounds comfortably transitioned to digital classes, children from public schools sat at home, without tools and access to digital infrastructure, missing out on most of the school year.

Frontline workers struggle for PPE

The organisation also noted that SA health workers also faced high risk during the pandemic because of a lack of personal protective equipment (PPE).

Amid the lack of quality PPE, several cases of PPE corruption in the health and education departments have been uncovered, and those cases are ongoing.

During this time, there was also restricted access to sexual and reproductive health services for women due, in part, to a lack of clarity on what constituted “essential” services.

“Additionally, almost 20 million people still do not have access to safe, sufficient, reliable water and 14 million people do not have basic sanitation,” notes Amnesty.

Increasing unemployment

“The global health crisis has brought to the fore the continuing poor state of service delivery in the country and the resultant inequalities,” said Mohamed.

Amnesty International said the “unacceptably slow pace of economic transformation and growth” continues to have a devastating impact on the country.

The country’s unemployment rate has since hit a new record high of 34.9% for the third quarter of 2021.

“It can no longer be acceptable to use Covid-19 as an excuse for these human rights failures and to crack down on people’s fundamental rights,” Mohamed said. 

“It is now, more than ever, that we need the government to put the people first and ensure that everyone is afforded their basic human rights.”

Compiled by Narissa Subramoney

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