MALAWIANS FLEE QUARANTINE CENTRES
A YOUNG schoolgirl walks into the Kliptown Youth Programme (KYP) wearing a backpack crammed with books and a smile for her friends hunched over their laptops. Thando Bezana stops her mid-sentence.
“Where’s your mask?” asks the co-founder of the KYP in Soweto. “Sorry,” she mutters, quickly putting it on while Bezana takes her temperature. With the all-clear, she grins as she joins her friends and their schoolwork.
Here at the KYP, social distancing and regular handwashing are strictly policed to avoid the spread of the novel coronavirus. But it’s virtually impossible in the slum-like conditions of the historic informal settlement, the birthplace of the Freedom Charter, that sprawls beyond its heavy gates.
“There’s been no lockdown in Kliptown,” says Bezana. “One of the reasons is the social conditions … You can’t social distance when what divides some of the shacks is not even a metre, it’s just a sheet in-between … The only time you will find everyone inside is at dinnertime or when they are sleeping. During the day people are sitting outside or playing on the streets.”
The KYP, whose motto is “from poverty to opportunity”, has long been a sanctuary for over 500 of Kliptown’s impoverished children, educating, inspiring and feeding them – and keeping them safe.
During the Covid-19 lockdown, it has been a lifeline, distributing monthly food parcels to hungry children in its programme and families across Kliptown, as well as thousands of masks.
“Corona is real and we’re very worried about it in Kliptown where it will spread like wildfire. But many people here don’t know about Corona. They understand HIV and Aids because they’ve experienced it, but they don’t think the coronavirus will affect them. Many people only wear masks when they come into places like this, go to a shop or when they see the police.”
A few hundred metres away from the KYP, nine-year-old David Mpheto pushes a wheelbarrow with a filled water container over a rubbish-strewn furrow, parking it outside his grandmother’s dark, tiny shack. Mangani Mpheto, 72, applied for a RDP home over 20 years ago - and is still waiting.
“I don’t understand what this coronavirus means and I don’t know anything about it,” says Mpheto, 72, sitting on a bustling, pothole-filled street in the winter sun. The stench of sewage lingers.
In Kliptown, there are only two taps and a Jojo tank to service thousands of people while residents are forced to share poorly-serviced communal toilets.
“My biggest problem is getting water. I can’t walk to the tap, which is a distance and I’m worried when the children go back to school, how I will get water? We only have enough water to wash our hands before eating.”
Sandile Mqhayi, of the Bahlali Forum, which represents the local community, says it’s hard for Kliptown’s residents to regularly wash their hands because of water shortages. “Sometimes there’s no water in the taps. Social distancing, as you see, people don’t comply. And no one in the government has come to educate the people about Corona.”
For the past 70 days, communities in informal settlements like Kliptown have been confined to their shacks for the duration of the lockdown, says Basetsana Koitsioe, a candidate attorney at the Centre for Applied Legal Studies (Cals). “As we know conditions in informal settlements are inadequate. Many residents live without access to water or sanitation, are overcrowded, and face the constant threat of forced eviction.”
Handwashing, disinfecting surfaces, physical distancing and quarantine for those infected and essential elements in Covid-19 prevention are often impossible. “Residents of informal settlements explain that their reason for breaking social isolation regulations is because, for them, it’s not possible to remain indoors, in one room, shared and occupied by four to eight people.
“The material most people have used to build their shacks is tin, which heats up in the sun.”
On sunny days, a shack can get so hot that, without proper ventilation, it can be hard for occupants to breathe. “There is no personal yard space outside the shacks to stand in to access fresh air and children are confined to the shack. As it stands, stepping outside the shack is a contravention
MORE than 400 Malawians broke out of isolation and quarantine centres, with some complaining that their basic needs were not being met.
There is no personal yard space outside the
shacks
Basetsana Koitsioe
CALS CANDIDATE ATTORNEY
ICYMI
| IOL.CO.ZA
of the regulations put in place to slow the spread of the virus,” says Koitsioe.
In Kliptown, residents have not had access to any waste removal services since the start of the lockdown. “This further illustrates the inequalities experienced in informal settlements in access to basic services such as water and sanitation,” she says.
Communal toilets “present a huge challenge in maintaining a hygienic environment and curbing the spread of the virus. This lack of access to adequate sanitation disproportionately impacts women, girls and people living with disabilities within the community.”
The state must address the housing needs of informal settlements on an urgent and priority basis to ensure their equal protection against the virus and the protection of the broader population.
The lockdown, Koitsioe says, has highlighted the stark inequalities that manifest from past failures of the state in inadequately monitoring the implementation of its own housing policies.
“Inasmuch as there is political will to continue forging interventions to ease the lived experiences of those living in informal housing, any such interventions must include access to adequate housing progressively realising the element of ‘home’.”
Other considerations must include safe and reliable water, sanitation facilities, access to health care and food and must adhere to national and international human rights standards, she says. In 2014, a successful court challenge by Cals helped relocate 250 households whose homes were flooded when the Klipspruit burst its banks.
It continues to assist the community with various service delivery issues including upgrading of the informal settlement.
“Before the lockdown the city had started work on its promise to rezone and upgrade the informal settlement. This work seems to have been stalled by the lockdown.”
As Robert Mabasa of the Bahlali Forum speaks of the history of Kliptown, his eyes fill with despair. “This place should have been developed a long time ago,” he says. “But instead, it’s like we’re wild animals, we’re not recognised as human beings. This is a forgotten place and we have been rejected. That’s why we are living like this.
“People are not following the regulations of the lockdown, you find the streets full, but people here can’t afford to stay at home when they are hungry,” Mabasa says.