Spotlight on GBV, land and inequality
RESIDENTS of townships from across Gauteng took the opportunity to raise the problems which most trouble them when they attended the launch of Human Rights Month at Freedom Park last week.
The launch – by the departments of Sport, Arts & Culture and Justice and Constitutional Development – to be commemorated this month, under the theme “Consolidating and Sustaining Human Rights Culture into the Future”, will focus on human rights and inequality.
A panel at the launch included Minister Nathi Mthethwa, Deputy Justice Minister John Jeffery, Social Cohesion advocate Xoliswa Bam and Playhouse chairperson of Council Khwezi Kunene.
They focused on how government and Chapter 9 institutions were enabling access to the rights to equality, human dignity, and linguistic and cultural rights. Those at the launch posed questions to the panel and raised challenges that they have faced.
Mthethwa, in his opening remarks, focused on the 1960 Sharpville Massacre, gender-based violence (GBV) and the department’s role in assisting communities overcome challenges on human rights and inequality.
He said: “We are here today, almost 30 years into democracy, not just to look back. We commemorate and celebrate this day. We commemorate that it is a day founded on the blood, sweat and tears of our people.
“The Struggle for freedom was not just civilly artistic, it was deeper than that; it was about changing fundamentally, the lives of our people.”
Nelson Nyamo from Black Lawyers’ Association Student Chapter asked Mthethwa about his department’s role in the restitution of land to black people.
“Our main problem is that we are landless, how are we supposed to celebrate our human rights when we are cramped in the squatter camps with no dignity?” asked Nyamo.
Gugulethu Mtshali, also from the Black Lawyers Association Student Chapter, asked about the importance of nurturing the boy child and involving youth in resolving community problems. “We have given the girl child so much empowerment Minister, let’s also look at how we nurture and teach boy children from a young age the good and bad things.”
Jeffery, responding to the GBV issue, said: “}from the government side, we are trying to make things easier for survivors of GBV, rape and sexual offences, (enabling) them to testify without secondary victimisation and also making it easier for people to get protection orders.”
On land, Mthethwa acknowledged government still had a long way to go, and urged the youth to encourage other youth to participate in engagements on the expropriation of land.