SA still battling human rights challenges
JOHANNESBURG - As South Africa celebrated Human Rights Day yesterday, there are still many challenges that prevent citizens from fully accessing their rights, political players have said.
Human Rights Day is celebrated on the anniversary of the Sharpeville massacre in 1960. During a peaceful protest against unjust pass laws, 69 people lost their lives and 180 were wounded when police opened fire.
This year’s Human Rights Day comes at a time when the country continues to battle several human rights challenges, including the power crisis, according to the South African Human Rights Commission.
Other challenges included climate change and natural disasters, gender-based violence, unemployment, lack of service delivery, rampant corruption as well as crime and racial tension, the commission said.
“As South Africa commemorates this day, the commission calls on all South Africans to hold fast to their fundamental freedoms in all that we do, and at all times to be reflective that together acting with dignity and respect, we will get through these challenges, and emerge a nation proud of its human rights culture and importantly united in our diversity,” the commission said.
Human Rights Day presented an opportunity for all South Africans to reflect on the ‘country’s painful and unjust past’ and the significance of the transition from apartheid to the democratic dispensation, the commission added.
Parliament’s presiding officers – National Assembly Speaker Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula and National Council
of Provinces Chairperson Amos Masondo – said since the dawn of democracy, peaceful protests by every person or under political formations were guaranteed in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.
“However, it is the responsibility of those who participate as well as the law enforcement officers to ensure that no one infringes on the rights of others when they exercise theirs,” the presiding officers said.
“Parliament promotes and supports the right to peaceful protest and demonstration and urges all South Africans, at all times, to act responsibly and ensure that no one’s right to safety is violated and intimidated.”
Mapisa-Nqakula and Masondo said that there were ‘challenges that continue to threaten the progress made as a country’.
“Chief among these challenges are the triple challenges of unemployment, poverty and inequality, a great socio-economic burden that is borne mostly by young people who constitute the majority in this country,” they said.
In a statement, the ANC said the country celebrated Human Rights Day ‘in difficult times’.
“We are aware that living conditions and the provision of basic services have seriously deteriorated for years, with a daily impact on South Africans’ lives. Citizens of this country raised challenges in accessing adequate healthcare, electricity, food and housing, and complained of low salaries that make it impossible for people to meet their basic needs,” the party said.
The party called on South Africans to redress all historical imbalances while advancing socio-economic transformation.