Attention: Editors and Reporters
22 August 2022
The South African Human Rights Commission (SAHRC) Eastern Cape provincial office will be embarking on various monitoring activities in Alfred Nzo and O.R. Tambo Districts. Section 184 (1) (c) of the South African Constitution states that the Commission must monitor and assess the observance of human rights in the Republic. The role of monitoring and assessing human rights and potential human rights violations provides an opportunity for the Commission to ensure redress and to ensure that human rights are upheld.
Attention: Editors and Reporters
19 August 2022
On 17 August, the Times Online published an article that implied that the MEC of Education in Gauteng, Panyaza Lesufi, was not opposed to the use of corporal punishment in schools to enforce discipline. If these insinuations by the Times Live report are indeed accurate, the South African Human Rights Commission (Commission) would be concerned, in light of the right to bodily and psychological integrity and the right not to be treated or punished in a cruel, inhuman and degrading manner and particularly given the lack of agency that learners have and the extremely violent society in which we live.
Attention: Editors and Reporters
15 August 2022
The SAHRC Western Cape provincial office will this week be embarking on various monitoring and advocacy activities in the Overberg District Municipality. Section 184 (1) (c) of the South African Constitution states that the Commission must monitor and assess the observance of human rights in the Republic. The role of monitoring and assessing human rights and potential human rights violations, provides for an opportunity for the Commission to ensure redress and to ensure that human rights are upheld in the Republic.
Attention: Editors and Reporters
Tuesday, 09 August 2022
09 August 2022 marks 66 years since the 1956 march that saw about 20 000 women descend on the Union Buildings in Pretoria to protest against the introduction of an apartheid pass law which was aimed at restricting black women’s movement in urban areas. The heroic act of defiance led by struggle icons such as Lillian Ngoyi, Helen Joseph, Rahima Moosa and Sophia Williams saw scores of women from across the country converge at the Union Buildings to deliver a petition containing more than 100,000 signatures calling for the end of this unjust act.
04 August 2022
Attention: Editors and Reporters
The South African Human Rights Commission (the Commission) is concerned about the escalating high level of gruesome and atrocious attacks on women. The recent reported incidence of alleged gang raping of 8 women in Krugersdorp is a cause for serious concern.
Attention: Editors and Reporters
3 August 2022
The South African Human Rights Commission (“Commission/SAHRC”) in the Eastern Cape will be conducting a site inspection of a community stationed on the roadside on the N10 between Cradock and Middleburg. The community was established in 1997 and there have been numerous engagements throughout the years with the relevant acting agents of government to assist the community with housing and basic services. Sections 26 and 27 of the Constitution provides that everyone has the right to housing and basic services and the state must take reasonable measures within its available resources to ensure that these rights are realized. It appears that the community is still without basic services and housing.
Understanding PAIA
The Human Rights Commission is the national institution established to support constitutional democracy. It is committed to promote respect for, observance of and protection of human rights for everyone without fear or favour.
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