Human Rights Day

In defence of human rights

30+ years of struggle and progress

Human Rights Day in South Africa was born out of the day commemorating the shootings at Sharpeville on 21 March 1960, where 69 people were killed for protesting against the pass laws, which restricted the movemenit of African people in urban areas.

After we became a democracy in 1994, 21 March has been celebrated as Human Rights Day, providing us with an opportunity to focus on other human rights abuses that might have been overlooked.

The South African Human Rights Commission (SAHRC) was inaugurated in October 1995, but the ­ first commissioners were appointed on 21 March 1996. Since then, the commission has been responsible for monitoring and penalising human rights abuses in our country. We are pleased to feature an article specially written for us by the chairperson of the commission, Reverend Chris Nissen, reflecting on the major successes and challenges of the past 30 years.

Human rights abuses occur at many levels and in many areas of society. Gender-based violence is one of the abuses that disgust everyone, except the perpetrators. However, despite the outrage, not much has been done to ensure women in South Africa feel safe to live their lives. We examine what further measures can be taken to ensure the safety of women.

Human rights abuses also occur in municipalities where councils fail to deliver basic services to communities, including water, electricity or transport. We look at what municipalities must do to ensure proper service delivery and how the lack of service delivery will impact the local  government elections scheduled for later this year.

Human rights abuses affecting young people, such as being denied the right to decent employment and having proper access to the internet and related digital technologies, climate change and its impact on our rights, and the rights of people with disabilities, are other focus areas of this publication.

Finally, we pay tribute to some of South Africa’s human rights champions, who daily tackle the abuse of our rights.

Ryland Fisher, EDITOR

Sales Project Manager:

Jerome van der Merwe

Tel: (021) 469 2485

Cell: 082 668 1496

Email: jeromeM@picasso.co.za.