SUMMARY
Violent crime
on South Africa's farms has recently become a high profile media and political
issue. Some of this attention has focused on assaults on farm residents
by white farm owners, but the heightened interest has been driven mostly
by a rise in violent crime against white farm owners. Since the early 1990s,
there has been a marked increase in assaults and murders of the owners
and managers of commercial farms and their families, disproportionate to
general crime trends in South Africa. Several hundred white farmers have
been murdered, mostly by strangers to their property. In the context of
government-endorsed land invasions in neighboring Zimbabwe, some white
farm owners have perceived this escalation in violent crime to be part
of an organized conspiracy to drive them from the land, perhaps masterminded
by elements within the government. The term "farm attacks," used by farm
owners, police, and others to describe these crimes, has tended to reinforce
this interpretation, by suggesting a terrorist or military purpose. Yet
the available research shows that most crime against white farmers is criminally
motivated, the perpetrators seeking firearms, money, or vehicles, and that
the violence used is instrumental to these purposes. Farms, remote and
scattered, are seen as easy targets. In a small number of cases, the motive
may be revenge for eviction or past ill-treatment.
The new vulnerability
of a group relatively protected from crime during the apartheid era, as
well as the perceived political motivation for "farm attacks," led organizations
representing commercial farmers to demand that the new African National
Congress (ANC)-led government installed in 1994 take stronger action. These
protests resulted first in the implementation of a "rural protection plan"
in October 1997, and then in a "rural safety summit" in October 1998 called
by then President Nelson Mandela. The rural safety summit endorsed the
rural protection plan as the basis of a strategy to combat violent crime
affecting farming communities, and called for a comprehensive policy framework
to be developed to ensure long term safety. The rural protection plan coordinates
the activities of the South African Police Service (SAPS), South African
National Defence Force (SANDF), and farmers themselves in combating rural
crime, and provides for regular police patrols of commercial farming areas.
In many areas, white farm owners are also linked together by radio in security
cells, often known as the "farmwatch" system. In some parts of South Africa,
farmwatches are supported by commando units, a system of army reserve units
made up largely of civilians who serve part-time in the security forces.
In parallel with the implementation of the rural protection plan, the police
began to distribute questionnaires to police stations in farming areas
in order to collect statistics relating to "farm attacks"; that is, crime
committed on farms by outsiders to the property.
The rural protection
plan was presented as a comprehensive initiative aimed at addressing the
concerns of all residents of commercial farming areas in relation to violent
crime. In practice, however, the plan has significantly increased insecurity
for black residents of and vistors to commercial farming areas, as they
have become the targets of sometimes indiscriminate "anti-crime" initiatives.
Members of the commandos, police reservists, full-time soldiers and police,
and others participating in the rural protection plan have committed serious
abuses against farmworkers and other farm residents. There are reports
of abuses, ranging from the staging of illegal roadblocks to murder, by
commando units in several areas, especially those operating in southern
Mpumalanga and northern KwaZulu-Natal. Members of the Wakkerstroom commando,
one of several commando units controlled by local farmers in this border
region, are accused of assault, torture, forced and illegal evictions,
and murder of farm residents.
In addition,
the rural protection plan has largely failed to respond to crime committed
against black farm residents, in particular crime committed by white farm
owners. Yet farmworkers and residents on commercial farms in South Africa
are frequently subjected to physical abuse by their employers and their
agents. This abuse ranges from casual blows with fists for alleged mistakes
in work or impertinence, to serious physical violence, including murder.
While there are no reliable statistics relating to the number of assaults
on farmworkers by their employers, and there has been no effort to collect
such information similar to that in the case of "farm attacks," the problem
is clearly widespread. Racial insults are routine. Rape of women employees
by white farmers remains an unquantified problem. Rape and sexual assault
of black women farmworkers or residents by other farmworkers or residents
is common. A great deal of violence against farmworkers and residents takes
place in the context of attempts to evict people from commercial farms
in violation of new laws giving farm residents a degree of security of
tenure--virtually all evictions are carried out under the actual or implied
threat of force. Violence against farmworkers and residents is perpetrated
not only by farm owners and managers, with whom they are in daily contact,
but also by private security companies and vigilante groups hired by farm
owners. Those seeking to uphold farmworkers' interests have also been harassed
and assaulted when they have sought access to farms.
This report
seeks to examine the state's response to violence on farms in comparative
perspective, looking both at the response to violent crime against farm
owners and at the response to violent crime against farm workers and other
residents committed by farm owners. Assaults on black farm residents by
other farm residents are also commonly reported, and in many farming areas
these are among the crimes most frequently handled by the police. However,
Human Rights Watch focuses here on assaults by farm owners or managers
against farm residents or workers both because of the particular significance
attached to such assaults by farm residents themselves, and because the
problems that farm residents have in accessing the criminal justice system
are particularly acute in such cases. Although farm residents generally
reported an inadequate response from the criminal justice system when they
reported assaults, these problems were much worse when they attempted to
report assaults carried out by (white) farm owners or managers.
Farmworkers
and residents face great problems if they wish to report assaults by farm
owners or managers, starting from a fear of retaliation should they speak
out. The police are frequently unresponsive, sometimes hostile, and may
even refuse to open a file. It is a common practice for a farmer accused
of assault to file a "counter charge" such as theft, and for the police
to hold the two to cancel each other out--even though this contravenes
proper police practice. Police investigations of assaults on farmworkers
or residents are often dilatory and inadequate; many prosecutors, who have
the power to refer files back to the police for reinvestigation, seem prepared
to accept substandard police investigations and all too easily to decline
to prosecute. Often, where prosecutions have been sucessful, sentences
applied have failed to reflect the seriousness of the offense. A crisis
in the legal aid system, established to provide legal assistance for the
indigent, has prevented many victims of assault or people facing eviction
from obtaining legal representation to enforce their rights. As a consequence,
farm owners and managers, private security company personnel, and police
or army reservists who commit violence against black farmworkers and residents
do so largely with impunity.
The state response
to violent crime against farm owners is much more determined and effective--even
if resource and other constraints mean that police response times are often
too slow and police detective work inadequate, and that the state has therefore
also relied on self-help initiatives from the farm owners. The police in
commercial farming areas have been mobilized to treat crime against farm
owners as a particular priority. The government has also endorsed the farmwatch
system and the use of the commandos, which have in some cases played an
important role in helping to protect farm owners and managers from violent
crime and in catching those who have committed crimes against farm owners
or managers. Indeed, the arrest rate in cases of violent crime against
farm owners and managers is higher than in the case of most crimes committed
in South Africa. As with other cases in the criminal justice system, too
many of those arrested are not brought to trial despite a
prima facie case against them; but, nonetheless, charges are more diligently
pursued and investigated when the victim is a white farmer or farm manager
than when the victim is a black farm resident, even where the crime committed
is equally serious. Most of those convicted of violent crime against farm
owners have been sentenced to long terms of imprisonment. Even so, white
farm owners express dissatisfaction with the rural protection plan, which,
as murders of farm owners continue, they see as inadequate.
Violent crime
is a major problem in South Africa, with reported murder and rape at among
the highest rates in the world. Crime rates do not differ significantly
between rural and urban areas. In some rural areas, especially in KwaZulu-Natal,
the effects of the former apartheid state's deliberate promotion of violence
among black communities are still felt in continued "faction violence"
between well-armed gangs, whose predations have long been suffered by black
residents of the same areas, but are now spilling over, it seems, to affect
white farmers.
In the face
of this violence, and in common with other countries undergoing transition
from autocratic rule, South Africa's criminal justice system is under severe
strain. Despite efforts to demilitarize policing and instill a commitment
to community service and human rights, the government has yet to be able
to create an effective force devoted to the ideals of the new constitution.
Community policing forums (CPFs) set up since 1994, at which police and
community representatives sit together to sort out problems, have had only
limited success in improving the accountability of police officers to the
communities where they work. Police brutality and corruption remain depressingly
common. Moreover, the police have severe resource constraints. Similarly,
the transition to a new order has also been difficult for the court system,
and delays in the criminal justice process have led to a vast backlog of
cases awaiting trial, despite efforts by the National Director of Public
Prosecutions (NDPP) to clear them. There are a disturbing number of cases
in which dockets (case files) go "missing," apparently as a result of corruption
among police or court officials. In response to these deficiencies, vigilante
violence has become an increasing problem, with groups such as Mapogo a
Mathamaga, founded in the Northern Province, rapidly becoming as much of
a problem to society as the criminals which they originally targeted.
But the state's
response to violent crime on farms cannot be viewed only in the context
of the generally high rate of violent crime in South Africa. It is clearly
influenced by factors such as race, gender, and socio-economic status.
Farm owners and managers continue mostly to be white and much wealthier
than farmworkers and other residents, invariably black and poor. During
the apartheid years, state policies accentuated this divide, reinforcing
the wealth and land ownership of the white farmer minority at the expense
of the poor black majority, which was rendered largely landless by government
policy. Today, apartheid has gone, but its legacy of inequality remains
deeply rooted. Working conditions on farms vary, but mostly are poor. According
to the government statistical service, people employed in agriculture are
worse off than those in every other major sector of the economy. For black
workers on farms, wages are low, housing poor, access to education difficult
or non-existent, and health indicators bad.
The situation
of women on farms is more precarious than that of men. Discrimination against
women in the workplace is often linked to violence against them either
at the workplace or in the home. The acute power imbalance on farms between
farm owners and farmworkers, and between men and women, work to the disadvantage
of women. Despite a court ruling that a woman farmworker could not be evicted
because her husband lost his job on the same farm, women farmworkers' access
to housing is still dependent, in practice, on their relationship to a
man who is employed on the farm. Women are more likely to be seasonal or
temporary workers than men, and usually carry out the less well-paid jobs,
such as planting or harvesting, while men occupy the relatively prestigious
positions, such as foremen or tractor drivers. Women are also discriminated
against by being paid lower wages than men doing the same type of work
or work of equal value. Many women are also denied maternity leave, although
they have the right to four months' leave under the law: some are allowed
only the absolute minimum time to give birth; others who do get permission
to take leave do not obtain the benefits they are due from the Unemployment
Insurance Fund.
Women farm
workers' experience of gender discrimination thus intersects with racism.
Rape and sexual harassment of black women when perpetrated by farm owners
and managers amounts to a type of "superexploitation" of women by those
who have dominance over them in their homes or workplaces. Women's dependence
on men for access to housing and employment renders them vulnerable to
abuse within the workplace and home by their male co-workers and partners.
Many women who are raped or sexually abused fear to report the crime. To
do so could be to risk dismissal or eviction. But even when women do seek
protection from the criminal justice system, they face bias and obstruction
from officials; blame from their family and the community, and possible
retaliation from the perpetrators. Many women are unaware of their rights;
and they lack access to information and social support services.
Under the apartheid
system, white farmers could rely on the support of the state, including
the police and army, to ensure control over their labor. This historically
close relationship to such state institutions is maintained today in many
areas: because farm owners are economically much more powerful than their
black neighbors, they continue to hold a privileged position. Even where
black police officers have been promoted and appointed as station commissioners,
the economic realities of rural life mean that taking action against locally
powerful figures is potentially hazardous. For the same reason, white farm
owners who complain of criminal activity that affects them usually receive
priority attention, even from black police station commissioners. Thus,
implementation of the rural protection plan still shows its origins as
a response to the demands of white farm owners for action, rather than
to the needs of the all those living in commercial farming areas for protection
against violent crime. In only a very few areas have those implementing
the plan developed it in a way that seeks to respond effectively to the
concerns of all sectors of the community; and even in those cases, control
of the system is largely by white farm owners and businessmen.
The rural protection
plan needs to be comprehensively restructured to take account not only
of the needs the commercial farming community but also those of farm residents
and those living in the former homeland areas, the "tribal reserves," that
adjoin commercial farmland. In particular, the inadequacies of the police
service must be addressed. The answer, however, is not to allow one powerful
group effectively to take over the functions of the police by setting up
parallel, essentially unaccountable structures. The criminal justice system
must operate for the protection of all South Africans, irrespective of
race, gender, or economic status.
The most pressing
need is for the government to improve the quality of policing and prosecution
in response to violence on farms--all violence, not only violent crime
against white farmers. This will require an injection of additional resources
and training for the police and prosecutors. Among other immediate steps,
civilians who serve part-time in the military or police must, as well as
their full-time colleagues, be brought under proper discipline and control.
All those involved in policing should be instructed and trained to respond
to reports of violent crime without discrimination on grounds outlawed
by the South African constitution and international law. Effective mechanisms
must be put in place to ensure that complaints of abuse by commando members
or police reservists are thoroughly and promptly investigated, and that
those responsible for abuse are appropriately disciplined or prosecuted.
The state's
ability to address violence on farms effectively is limited by a lack of
relevant data and statistics. There are no statistics relating to assaults
on farmworkers by farm owners or managers or other farmworkers. The statistics
about violent crime against farm owners do not distinguish between crimes
affecting remote commercial farms and crimes affecting smallholdings, small
properties whose owners do not derive their main income from farming, usually
located near to cities and thus in a very different crime environment.
They also tend to emphasize crime against farm owners and managers by recording
only crimes committed by strangers. These problems have helped to produce
distorted perceptions of the relative incidence of violence affecting farm
owners, farmworkers, and other farm residents. Fuller and more accurate
statistics should be compiled to document the nature and extent of all
violence on farms. The figures for farms and smallholdings should be separately
reported.
The government
should examine whether it would improve police accountability to merge
the structures of the rural protection plan with the community policing
forums in commercial farming areas. Under the current system, there are
supposed to be parallel sets of monthly meetings, but both are poorly attended,
while the rural protection plan is often seen as being for the farm owners,
and the CPFs for the black community. The new "community safety forums"
being piloted in the Western Cape, which involve all government sectors
in efforts to combat crime, not only the security forces, may form a useful
model.
Human Rights
Watch believes that other than in exceptional circumstances, such as a
national emergency declared according to the proper procedures under the
constitution and legislation, police and not soldiers should carry out
policing duties. Accordingly, the commando units made up of army reservists
should not be involved in policing. Civilians who wish to be involved in
policing on a part time basis should be police reservists, and should receive
training in policing skills and instruction on the laws of South Africa
and respect for human rights, rather than army-style boot camp. Where soldiers
are deployed for policing duties, they should not have full police powers,
but only those that are required to fill a support role. For example, police
should carry out duties such as house searches, even if soldiers are deployed
to establish a cordon around the house.
Those in charge
of implementing the rural protection plan should take urgent steps to implement
a transition from military to civilian policing. In the interim, before
this switch can be carried out, it should be required that commando units
carrying out policing duties be accompanied by a full time police officer,
preferably of middle or senior rank, not a reservist, who should be in
command as regards all policing duties. The SANDF should urgently develop
an effective internal mechanism for handling public complaints in order
that persons who allege abuses by military personnel can obtain redress.
In addition, the Independent Complaints Directorate (ICD), the body responsible
for investigating complaints against the police, should be empowered to
investigate or oversee the investigation of complaints against any state
agent deployed for policing purposes.
Stricter controls
should also be enforced against private security initiatives, including
farmwatch and similar private schemes, to ensure that they do not act as
vigilante groups. Government should introduce legislation to regulate such
schemes, and work with representatives of commercial farmers and other
interested parties to develop a code of conduct for those who participate
in them. Private security companies and farmwatch structures should be
permitted only to carry out preventive patrols and "citizen's arrests"
of persons actually found in the course of committing a crime. It should
be made clear that such security service providers have no policing or
other authority beyond that of private citizens, and are to be held to
account for crimes in the same way as private citizens. They should be
required to hand individuals arrested to the police without delay, and
they should be prohibited from taking the initiative in conducting house
searches for illegal weapons or similar activities, but required rather
to pass relevant information to the police. Laws regulating the private
security industry should provide for the police and courts to be required
to report to the regulatory authority alleged crimes, charges, and convictions
involving security service providers.
Since 1994,
the ANC-led government has taken important steps to reverse the existing
racial inequalities affecting access to land that were enforced by the
former colonial and apartheid governments. It has passed laws for the restitution
of some land, redistributed other land through state purchases from private
owners, and provided some degree of security of tenure for black farm residents.
South African labor law has been completely overhauled, and its application,
including the right to organize, extended to farmworkers. The government
has also attempted to overcome the deficiencies of the criminal justice
system, particularly in relation to violence against women.
Yet the legacy
of apartheid and institutionalized racial segregation and discrimination
remains potent, and continues to undermine the criminal justice system.
Most criminal laws are now race-neutral on their face (by contrast with
apartheid era laws criminalizing a variety of activities when undertaken
by blacks). But in practice, law enforcement continues to be discriminatory,
with adverse impacts on blacks and women.
The South African
government has an obligation under international law to provide equal treatment
under the law to all persons, irrespective of their race, gender, or other
distinguishing characteristics. Yet, currently, it is failing in this obligation.
In particular, the criminal justice system fails to ensure that police
and court officials investigate, prosecute, and punish murder, rape, and
other serious crimes against black South Africans with the same vigor as
when these crimes are committed against whites. While the government has
made great progress in promulgating laws that prohibit such discrimination,
it has failed to ensure that such laws are then systematically enforced.
Positive steps must be taken to ensure that all South Africans, regardless
of race or gender, receive equal protection of the law.
Farm owners
and farm residents have a mutual interest in mobilizing pressure on the
government to provide effective law enforcement and in participating in
the structures of the rural protection plan. There are many issues that
could provide the focus for a common agenda, if all sides believed their
concerns were being addressed; though joint action can only be very difficult
to develop in the context of South Africa's deeply divided society. Ultimately,
in law enforcement as in other areas, much will depend on a reduction in
the stark economic inequalities so obvious in the South African countryside.
***
The information
contained in this report is based on interviews conducted by Human Rights
Watch researchers from the Africa and Women's Rights Divisions in South
Africa in April and September 2000. We conducted the research in conjunction
with fieldworkers from organizations affiliated to the National Land Committee,
a South Africa-based land rights organization. These research findings
are primarily based on interviews conducted on farms located in five provinces
of South Africa: Northern Province, KwaZulu-Natal, Mpumalanga, Western
Cape, and Gauteng. We interviewed dozens of current and former farm residents,
male and female, as well as farm owners, police, members of commando units
and private security companies, prosecutors, district surgeons, magistrates,
and others in the criminal justice system. We spoke to representatives
of farm owners, and to advocates for land reform and improved conditions
for farm residents. We also interviewed former farmworkers now living in
Johannesburg, Pietersburg, Pietermaritzburg, Cape Town, and other urban
areas, following an eviction or voluntary termination of their residence
on white-owned farms. Research in Ixopo was conducted for Human Rights
Watch by a consultant. We also benefitted from research undertaken by the
police, academics, and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs).
Human Rights
Watch conducted a workshop in Johannesburg in September 2000, together
with our partner organization on this project, the National Land Committee
(NLC). The thirty participants included representatives of the NLC and
its affiliated organizations, as well as of women's rights organizations
working with farmworkers in South Africa, farmworkers' unions, and of the
South African Human Rights Commission and the Commission on Gender Equality.
The participants at the workshop discussed the preliminary research findings
and made a key contribution to the recommendations on ways to combat violence
on farms in South Africa.
RECOMMENDATIONS
To the South
African Government:
-
The government must ensure that the criminal justice system responds effectively
and promptly to any reported serious crime, whoever the victim or the alleged
perpetrator, and that all victims have equal access to the protection of
the law, without discrimination in law or practice.
-
The government should ensure that all allegations of human rights abuses
by any state agent are promptly and thoroughly investigated by those responsible
within the criminal justice system, and that perpetrators of abuse are
disciplined or brought to justice. Security services should ensure proper
screening and effective disciplinary oversight of reserve, as well as of
full-time, members.
Commandos
-
The government
should establish a special investigation into the activities of the commando
units operating in southern Mpumalanga and northern KwaZulu-Natal (the
Piet Retief, Volksrust, Vryheid area), with a view to bringing to justice
all those identified by the investigations as having committed human rights
abuses.
-
Commando units,
made up of army reservists, should not be deployed for policing purposes.
Civilians who wish to be involved in policing on a part-time basis should
be police reservists, and should receive training in policing skills and
instruction on the laws of South Africa and respect for human rights.
-
The army should only be deployed for policing duties in exceptional circumstances,
such as a national emergency declared according to the constitutional and
legislative procedures. In any circumstances where soldiers or reservists
are deployed for policing duties, they should not have full police powers,
but only those that are required to fill a support role, and military personnel
should be clearly and continuously under the command of civilian police
structures.
-
The army should put in place procedures and designate authorities at all
group headquarters to receive, investigate, and act promptly on public
complaints against any soldier, whether full time or a reservist. The mandate
of the Independent Complaints Directorate (ICD) should be expanded to include
the investigation of complaints of human rights abuse by all state agents
deployed for policing duties.
Farmwatches
-
Legislation should
be introduced to regulate private non-profit security networks such as
the farmwatch units. In particular, members of private farmwatch structures
should be restricted to activities aimed at the prevention of crime, and
at immediate response to crime in accordance only with the powers of ordinary
citizens. Farmwatch structures should not act on information such as reports
of the possession of illegal weapons, but rather pass such reports to the
police to take appropriate action.
Regulation
of Private Security
-
he Security Industry
Regulation Bill should be passed into law and brought into force as a matter
of urgency. As currently proposed, the act should provide for: an independent
regulatory body, not linked to the industry; an effective system for screening
out individuals with criminal records before an individual or company is
registered; and a strict and legally binding code of conduct. The act should
also provide for compulsory reporting by the police and courts to the new
Security Industry Regulatory Authority of alleged crimes, charges, and
convictions involving private security providers. It should be made clear
that private security providers have no policing or other authority beyond
that of private citizens, and are liable to prosecution for crimes to the
same extent as other private citizens.
-
The laws forbidding
the use of military-style uniform (including camouflage) for those who
are not members of the army should be enforced. The Security Industry Regulation
Act should specifically prohibit the use by private security providers
of uniforms that could reasonably be mistaken for those of a state law
enforcement agency.
Police
-
The government
should institute a review of the collection of statistics in connection
with violence on farms. The police should consider the creation of specific
crime codes appropriate to distinguish between different types of crime:
for example, for murders or assaults on farm owners or managers, murders
or assaults on farmworkers or residents (including sexual assaults in all
cases), and for illegal evictions. In collecting these statistics, the
figures for "farms" and "smallholdings" should be disaggregated, and all
statistics should allow for disaggregation by gender. A parallel effort
to ensure that all reported incidents are correctly recorded by police
will be necessary. The statistics collected should be made publicly available
on a regular basis.
-
The government
should evaluate the needs of rural police stations for staff and equipment,
and ensure that rural as well as urban police stations have the human and
material resources necessary to combat crime effectively and on a nondiscriminatory
basis in their areas.
-
All reserve security
force members, like full time members, should receive training that focuses
on human rights within the criminal justice system, as protected by the
South African constitution and international standards, including standards
governing the use of firearms and force, as well as on South Africa's laws
protecting farm residents from eviction. Emphasis should be placed on training
to overcome racism and sexism and on nondiscrimination in responding to
reported crime.
-
All police should
be trained to respond effectively to rape and other physical attacks against
women, including women on farms, to ensure that women receive a sensitive
response to their complaints and are protected against possible retaliation.
Rural police stations (like urban police stations) should be staffed with
detective officers who have received full training on how to investigate
cases of sexual violence, including training on collecting forensic evidence
and the importance of medical evidence in rape trials.
-
The government should introduce a constitutional amendment to restore the
Independent Complaints Directorate to the status it held under the interim
constitution as one of the State Institutions Supporting Constitutional
Democracy established under Chapter 9. As such, the ICD should report to
parliament rather than the minister for safety and security. In addition,
new legislation should be introduced, separate from the Police Act, to
regulate the ICD and strengthen its powers. In particular, the ICD should
have the duty and power to investigate criminal offenses and misconduct
by members of the commandos when they are undertaking policing duties,
including to investigate deaths in custody or as a result of action taken
by the commandos. The army should be placed under an obligation to report
such deaths promptly to the ICD, as well as to local police stations. The
government should ensure that the powers and resources given to the ICD
are sufficient to enable it to fulfill its statutory duties satisfactorily,
including the investigation of systematic failures by the police to conduct
proper investigations into abuses by commando units and private security
companies.
Courts
-
The National Directorate
of Public Prosecutions (NDPP) should monitor prosecutions involving violence
on farms, whether directed against farm residents or farm owners, and assess
the backlog of cases in these categories, with a view to taking steps to
ensure that any backlog is cleared. The NDPP should conduct exemplary prosecutions
in especially egregious cases.
-
The Department
of Justice should monitor the handling of cases involving violence on farms
by prosecutors, magistrates, and judges, with a view to ensuring that there
is no race- or gender-based discrimination in the management of such cases.
-
Rural magistrates
courts (like urban courts) should be staffed with prosecutors who have
received proper training in how to respond appropriately to cases of alleged
sexual violence.
Evictions
-
Police officers
should receive training in and instructions to enforce section 23 of the
Extension of Security of Tenure Act, which makes it an offence for any
person to be evicted except on the authority of an order of court, or for
any person to obstruct or interfere with a state official or a mediator
in the performance of his or her duties under the act.
-
The NDPP should
conduct exemplary prosecutions in particularly egregious illegal eviction
cases, and should issue directives to all magistrates courts giving guidance
on how to conduct prosecutions in cases of illegal eviction.
Legal Aid
-
The establishment
of legal aid centers in commercial farming areas, providing assistance
in civil as well as criminal cases, should be a matter of priority, to
ensure effective access by all to the protection of the law. Pending the
establishment of such centers, the Legal Aid Board should urgently consider
resuming payments to legal practitioners under the existing "judicare"
system in cases of alleged illegal eviction.
Protection
of those Assisting Farmworkers
-
The Extension
of Security of Tenure Act should be amended in order to ensure that farmworkers'
rights to organize and access legal protection are effectively protected.
Lawyers, fieldworkers from NGOs working on land rights issues, union officials,
and others with a legal right to consult with clients living on farms must
be able to do so. Farm owners' legitimate concerns about security in relation
to access by strangers to their farms could be addressed by, for example,
the development of a system for the accreditation of NGO fieldworkers,
in particular, with the Department of Land Affairs (DLA).
-
The South African
Law Commission should be instructed to institute a review of the law of
trespass, with a view to ensuring that it cannot be used to prevent legitimate
access to farms.
Racial and
Gender Discrimination and Working Conditions
-
The Department
of Labour should ensure compliance on farms with international labor standards
set out by the International Labour Organization (ILO) and with the provisions
of national legislation. The government should ratify relevant ILO treaties,
where it has not yet done so, including the Maternity Protection Convention,
No. 183 of 2000, and the Protection of Wages Convention, No. 95 of 1949.The
government should strengthen the labor inspectorate and increase the number
of trained inspectors to ensure that it can carry out its mandate effectively.
-
Existing mechanisms
responsible for resolving labor relations disputes, such as the Commission
for Conciliation Mediation and Arbitration (CCMA), the Land Claims Court,
and the Labor Court, should be strengthened and given financial support
and staffing to enable them to fulfill their mandates. Staff should, in
particular, be trained in women's rights and all existing legislation guaranteeing
equality and equal protection of the law to women in the agricultural labor
force.
-
The government
should strengthen the capacity of the South African Human Rights Commission,
the Commission on Gender Equality, and the Independent Complaints Directorate
to operate branch offices in all provinces with enough financial resources
to carry out proper investigation of cases reported to them within their
mandates and to identify and act in response to patterns of abuse.
Restructuring
of the Rural Protection Plan
-
The government
should convene a forum of the relevant parties to evaluate the operation
of the rural protection plan, with a view to restructuring it to ensure
equal protection of the law to all those resident in commercial farming
areas. In addition, the government should commission an independent study
of the effectiveness of the rural protection plan, and monitor the plan's
operation on an ongoing basis.
-
Each government
structure involved in implementing the rural protection plan, at national,
provincial, and local level, should conduct an evaluation of all violent
crime reported in the area for which it is responsible, with a view to
identifying which crimes are of particular concern to different sections
of the community, including violent crimes against farm workers and residents
and women and children on farms. The results of this evaluation should
be used to ensure that structures created to combat crime respond effectively
to the needs of all sections of the community.
-
The government
should consider merging the local and area coordinating committees for
the rural protection plan with the community policing forums, and establishing
new structures chaired by local government and involving all relevant government
agencies, as well as representatives of farmworkers and farm owners, to
ensure effective coordination of efforts to combat crime.
-
The government
should commission a thorough and independent study of the extent of and
reasons for violence on farms, including violence against women, based
on interviews with farm owners, workers and residents in all nine provinces,
as well as members of the police, army, and court officials.
To the Human
Rights and Gender Equality Commissions:
-
As currently planned,
the South African Human Rights Commission (SAHRC) should hold comprehensive
hearings on the issue of conditions on farms in different provinces in
South Africa, with the aim of establishing the patterns of violence and
abuse, as well as the extent of racial bias in the handling of cases by
the criminal justice system, and making recommendations to government for
these issues to be redressed.
-
The Commission
on Gender Equality (CGE) should, in partnership with groups involved in
programs for women on farms and in coordination with the SAHRC, conduct
a detailed study of the situation of women farm workers and residents:
in particular, it should document cases of rape by farm owners, managers,
or other farm residents, and make recommendations to government to ensure
that discrimination and violence against women farmworkers is ended.
To All Those
Working for Rural Safety and Security:
-
Politicians, representatives
of commercial agriculture, farmworkers' unions, nongovernmental organizations
(NGOs) concerned with land or farmworkers' rights, and other interested
parties, should consistently, unambiguously, and evenhandedly condemn all
forms of violence on farms in South Africa, whether committed against farm
workers and residents or against farm owners. Organizations should take
steps to make clear to their members their opposition to violence, and
should put in place procedures to respond to allegations that an employee
or member has committed or incited a violent crime.
|