The Commission’s Eastern Cape Provincial Office has observed during its monitoring activities and through complaints received, that some of the Easter Cape semi-rural and rural communities have been under serviced in respect of telecommunication services. Some of these historically disadvantaged communities have limited to no telecommunications infrastructure installed. The lack of telecommunications services in the province may have resulted in numerous human rights violation such as contributing to a lack of access to health services, education, equality, safety, economic and social exclusion.

Section 16 (1)(b) of the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa provides that everyone has the right to receive and impart information or ideas, this is largely facilitated by having access to telecommunications services. In view thereof, the ECPO will be engaging with relevant Departments, Academia, Chapter nine (9) Institutions and Civil Society to ventilate include ascertaining the responsible role-players to ensure disadvantaged communities are connected, the plans in place to provide connectivity to said communities taking into account the National Development Plan (NDP): 2023 and collaboration strategies to explore in the short, medium and long-term to provide telecommunication services to disadvantaged communities.

The engagement also forms part of the SAHRC’s SHINE theme for the month of March: “A call to action: defending human rights in the age of social media” and will seek to gain momentum towards the launch of the official SAHRC Social Media Charter next week.

The panel discussion is scheduled to take place as follows:

Date:   7th of March 2023
Time:   10:00 – 13:00
Venue: Microsoft Teams
Link: Click here to join the meeting

Ends

For further information, contact the SAHRC Provincial Manager, Dr Eileen Carter @ 043 722 7828/072 638 9016 or email on This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. and Advocacy and Research Officer, Zukiswa N Mqakanya @ 043 722 7828 or email on This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.