• Human Rights in South Africa

    Despite South Africa’s strong constitutional protections for human rights and its relative success at providing basic services, the government is struggling to meet demands for economic and social rights. Financial mismanagement and corruption—especially at the local government level—have contributed to this issue. The killing of 34 miners at the Lonmin Platinum Mine in Marikana, North West Province in August of 2012 shocked South Africans and highlighted increasing concerns over police brutality and underlying grievances over the government’s failure to fulfill basic economic and social rights. Bills have been proposed that, if enacted, would negatively affect media freedom and access to justice.

  • (From Left to Right) Brazil's President Dilma Rousseff, former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, former Chinese President Hu Jintao and South African President Jacob Zuma wave during a group photo for the BRICS Summit in New Delhi on March 29, 2012.
    © 2012 Reuters
    Time for Brics to stop sitting on the fence over Syria atrocities
    Brics should call for the Syrian government to permit the delivery of humanitarian aid across its borders, including from Turkey
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South Africa

  • What Are the BRICS Building?
    Mar 30, 2013
    The Chinese call it jin zhuan, or golden brick. The Russians have suggested calling it briuki, an acronym meaning trousers in Russian. And what about the ambiguous S? It originally was just a plural for the emerging economies of Brazil, Russia, India, and China, places where a Goldman Sachs analyst was urging greater investment. Now it stands for South Africa, which joined in 2010 despite having an economy roughly on the order of China’s sixth-largest province.
  • Russia wants BRICS partners to ignore its transgressions
    Mar 26, 2013

    Official communiqués on the BRICS summit in Durban are promising new initiatives on trade, economic development and technical co-operation. But Russia wants more from its partners than just trade. With concern rising in Europe over the worst crackdown on Russian democracy since the Soviet Union collapsed more than 20 years ago, Vladimir Putin is coming to Africa to find supporters of its world view.

  • BRICS: Take Concrete Steps to Help Syria’s People
    Mar 26, 2013
    The BRICS countries should call for an end to indiscriminate attacks on civilians and civilian-populated areas in Syria, and insist that cluster munitions and incendiary weapons should not be used. Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa are meeting in Durban for the annual BRICS summit on March 26 and 27, 2013.
  • Time for Brics to stop sitting on the fence over Syria atrocities
    Mar 22, 2013
    Brics should call for the Syrian government to permit the delivery of humanitarian aid across its borders, including from Turkey
  • An end to violence against women starts with SA’s boys and men
    Feb 10, 2013
    It’s an occupational hazard when you work on women’s rights, to routinely face women who have been subjected to unspeakable violence, horrible beyond anything you could imagine. As a young lawyer in South Africa in the 1990s, one of first my clients was stabbed by her estranged husband. I held her hand as she bled to death on the pavement. When I worked as the director of the Tshwaranang Legal Advocacy Centre to End Violence Against Women in Johannesburg, I, and the other lawyers who provided legal advice at the centre, saw women every day looking for help to protect themselves from rape, beatings and other violence. Many of our clients arrived at the office with the signs of violence clearly visible on their bodies and their faces.
  • South Africa: Challenges to Fundamental Rights
    Jan 31, 2013
    (Johannesburg) – In 2012, South Africa faced one of its most challenging years for protecting human rights since the birth of constitutional democracy in 1994, Human Rights Watch said today in its World Report 2013. Three worrisome developments in particular emerged. The adoption of the Protection of State Information Bill by the National Council of Provinces in 2012, that would most likely be approved by the National Assembly in 2013, threatens freedom of expression and the free exchange of information. The tragic killings at Lonmin Platinum Mine in August 2012 amounted to the failure to uphold and protect security of the person and the right to life. Thirdly, the proposed Traditional Courts bill would be a blow to the right to equality if it is promulgated into law.
  • The disabled often are denied information about sex and HIV
    Dec 1, 2012
    Over a billion people — 15 percent of the world’s population — live with a disability. These numbers should confer power and authority in decision making about all aspects of their lives, including to HIV and AIDS. Yet people with disabilities have been largely ignored in the global response to HIV.
  • South Africa can contribute to ending bloodshed in Syria
    Nov 27, 2012

    To limit the violations by both sides and ensure justice for victims, South Africa and other key members of the international community should support the referral of Syria to the International Criminal Court.

  • De Doorns Strikes Show Urgent Need for Farm Worker Protections
    Nov 22, 2012
  • Crisis calls for Bill's swift passage
    Nov 2, 2012
    Busisiwe's story was only one of many tragic stories we heard while researching a report about maternal mortality. But it is a prime illustration of why the National Health Amendment Bill, published in January last year, needs to become law, and quickly. The Bill is designed to address key shortcomings in the monitoring and oversight of the health system. Among other things, it would make several changes to the office of standards compliance, tasked with developing quality standards for the health sector and monitoring them.
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