Another milestone for Eswatini

PAFTER THOUGHTS GUESTWRITER

OACHERS beware! The country is now equipped with a facility that can distinguish between poached game and goat meat using a sample of its fur or meat. On top of this, it will be able to identify the specific animal. And no more months of waiting for forensic results from neighbouring South Africa (SA) at great expense. Excellent!

All thanks to the new animal laboratory that is set to use DNA forensics to enhance investigations and submission of evidence to court for poaching related cases among other animal related issues. The animal laboratory that was launched on Wednesday marks yet another significant milestone for the country, coming soon after the launch of the country’s oxygen manufacturing plants a month ago.

These plants added to a health forensic laboratory that was set up in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, which has empowered our health system to conduct preliminary tests that previously had to join the queue in neighbouring SA that was serving the region and take forever to get back.

Incidentally, on the same day the Finance Minister, Neil Rijkenberg, was launching another technological step forward for the country with the electronic advance ruling tool, which will assist import and export traders submit requests and receive rulings on

IAFTER THOUGHTS GUESTVWOIRCITEER have been a silent observer in a group of domestic workers on one of the social media pages. A few months ago I attended a workshop on women empowerment and one of the issues discussed was that of domestic workers and the problems they face while working in people’s homes. It is no secret that women are faced with a number of challenges in general, issues we’ve been trying to fight against for decades with little or no wins. Imagine being already burdened with such issues, and then having to go through more in your place of employment. In my observation, and experience, I can say, with confidence, that some domestic workers face multiple forms of violence; physical abuse, intimidation, threats, bullying, sexual assault, harassment, being provided poor-quality food and a lack of privacy.

Certain categories of domestic workers face greater disadvantages. Live-in domestic workers experience more isolation, less privacy and more limited mobility, work longer hours and receive a larger share of payments in kind. I remember a few weeks ago when someone posted on Facebook that they were product origin, classification and valuation, prior to their movement. This is another huge development that has the potential to save costs and improve trade across borders, in addition to enhancing the ease of doing business in the country. We are also told we are the first in Africa to launch this online facility. Kudos to government.

Back to the animal lab. The project was initiated in April 2022 by Dr Sara Padidar, a Molecular Biologist from the Department of Biological Sciences at UNESWA. They highlighted that the EWILD Laboratory had cutting edge molecular capacity that would be critical to UNESWA, wildlife law enforcers and the general public.The EWILD Laboratory, which was established under the leadership of Professor Thembalilahlwa Mahlaba, is housed at the Department of Biological Sciences at UNESWA.

Contribution

We must thank USAID for their E2.7 million contribution, as well as AllOut Africa Foundation, towards the EWILD laboratory. The investment couldn’t have come sooner, given the growing wildlife sector in the country ,as well as the plans to merge the big five game reserves project to boost tourism.

The country is also highly susceptible to stock theft with thousands of livestock farmers falling prey to cattle rustlers. However, convictions don’t match the high rate of this crime. We look forward to the laboratory playing a significant role in this regard, applying standard international best practices. The services will be extended to other sectors such as ecological research and livestock management, which is good. Dr Padidar explained that this level of expert molecular identification was previously unavailable in Eswatini and had to be done in neighbouring SA, sometimes taking up to six months to get the results. Also, she said this had financial implications.

The statistics involving wildlife crime make for looking for someone who would live with her kids, wash, cook and clean for them. She went on to state that she doesn’t have money to pay this person, instead she will buy her clothes, provide her with food and shelter. Basically this person is looking for an employee who she can pay in kind!

Despite domestic workers’ important role, they are among the most exploited and abused workers in the world. They often work 14 to 18 hours a day, seven days a week, for wages far below the minimum wage. They wake up before everyone does in the house and go to bed after everyone else. I worked my way through high school and I know what it means to wake up at 6.30am to prepare breakfast and go to bed at 10pm after washing dinner dishes and cleaning up. This is beside the point that, throughout the day you only get tea and lunch breaks. Domestic workers are expected to be overworking machines that do not get tired or sick because, if you do, God-forbid, who will clean up the bread crumps off the table?

Important

I was surprised to see that domestic workers represent 4.5 per cent of all workers worldwide. Such an important part of the workforce, but why isn’t more attention directed into ensuring that they are safe and protected against exploitation and abuse? The vulnerabilities experienced within the sector are also compounded by the fact that the sector often encompasses disadvantaged groups, including women and children. In addition to being underpaid and overworked, many domestic workers remain socially and legally unprotected. Domestic work, mainly done by women, takes place behind closed depressing reading. Information availed at the launch by EWILD reveal that between 2017 and 2019 over 230 incidents of wildlife crime were reported and 20 species were affected. This has to stop. While doing some reading on the subject of animal DNA, I came across a research paper titled ‘Poaching forensics: Animal victims in the courtrooms’ by Cindy Harper of the Veterinary Genetics Laboratory, Faculty of Veterinary Science, University of Pretoria, Onderstepoort, South Africa, which cited cases involving this technology that underscore its significance.

Role

She highlighted how animal hair, particularly that of domestic pets, has also played a critical role in the conviction of offenders in human criminal cases due to the ease with which these hairs adhere to clothing and can be transferred. She cited one case of how the hair of a domestic cat named Snowball found on a suspect’s jacket linked him to a victim in a homicide case in Prince Edward Island, Canada. Harper further emphasises the point that the success of forensic scientists developing systems to support prosecution and investigation of wildlife and animal crime must, in turn, be supported by legislators developing frameworks and effective legal tools with which to enforce laws and improve prosecution.

“Training of prosecutors and magistrates in wildlife forensic techniques and their application to prosecuting wildlife crime, are essential to ensure that results are effectively and correctly introduced into court proceedings and well understood. In some instances, dedicated courts and prosecutors are required to deal with increased poaching and case loads. The rate of detection of trafficked animal products remains low compared to the numbers of animals being poached, and the sentences of perpetrators along the value chain, if convicted, have been relatively light in many jurisdictions,” she recommends.

With the launch of the EWILD animal lab, Eswatini is surely demonstrating a commitment to playing a part to curbing this global challenge. Now it is up to the rest of us to ensure this milestone makes a positive impact for this sector.

doors, almost invisible to the outside world. It is for this reason that domestic work needs to be taken more seriously in the country. We need legal policies that speak directly to domestic work and ensure that the gazetted wages and salaries are observed by employers.

The first thing that occurs to lawyers when they are faced with major problems, is that the law should be improved. This may be a reasonable step in any legislative corpus in which domestic workers benefit from even less legal protection than other workers. It may be that they are excluded from any protection afforded by labour laws because the householder, their employer, is not regarded as an employer in the legal sense. A further consequence of this may be that they are also excluded from the social security system. Under other legislative systems they are not entitled to join a union or participate in collective action. Whenever there are demonstrations by workers over salary increments or any other grievances, domestic workers never form part of those actions – because they do not consider themselves legally protected, therefore, do not believe their grievances can be corrected by joining forces with other workers.

Domestic workers may come from a low-income background and are considered to be a vulnerable population with lower education levels and poor awareness of safety and health hazards associated with their work. They do not receive proper training to deal with exposures as other workers get from their employers in a proper workplace setting – but they are considered ‘essential’workers as they make it possible for their employers to work outside their home thereby keeping global markets working. They are essential, therefore, they deserve to be treated as such.