Just this past week we commemorated Human Rights Day and World Water Day and it is important to remember the communities across the Western Cape who are denied their most basic human rights to dignity, health, physical security, and equality because municipalities continue to fail in their duty to provide residents with basic sanitation.
This week I visited families in Siqalokutsha, Khayelitsha in the City of Cape Town. Despite living there for the past three years, these families have no toilets and must relieve themselves either in a bucket, a plastic bag, or in the open spaces behind bushes. Women in Siqalokutsha told me how they worry about their exposure to infection from relieving themselves in buckets and bags, and of the risk of rape that they face every time they must relieve themselves behind bushes.
Siqalokutsha is situated on privately owned land, but that does not mean these families are not entitled to receive basic sanitation from the City of Cape Town. In his recent SABC interview, Mr Siboniso Ndlovu from the Department of Water and Sanitation confirmed the finding of a High Court case that the responsibility for providing sanitation to people who are living on privately owned land, but not working for the private landowner, rests with that local government.
I also visited the community of Tsitsi Two in Vredenburg, Saldanha Bay, where residents who have lived there for the past 11 years only received chemical toilets for the first time at the end of 2022, and then only one chemical toilet to be shared between 10 to 15 families. This is way below the nationally accepted standard. Residents say that, because there are not enough toilets and because of the long distances they must walk to reach a toilet, they have no choice but to relieve themselves in buckets. A huge pile of trash and human excrement lies in the centre of Tsitsi Two – a visual mockery of this community’s right to health and dignity.
South Africans living without basic sanitation experience a daily violation of their human rights which cannot be accepted or tolerated. ActionSA Western Cape has this week lodged complaints with the South African Human Rights Commission about the violation of the human rights experienced by the communities of Siqalokutsha and, Tsitsi Two.
ActionSA will continue to fight for the poor, marginalized and forgotten people of the Western Cape.
Western Cape communities denied rights to dignity, health, security and equality
Just this past week we commemorated Human Rights Day and World Water Day and it is important to remember the communities across the Western Cape who are denied their most basic human rights to dignity, health, physical security, and equality because municipalities continue to fail in their duty to provide residents with basic sanitation.
This week I visited families in Siqalokutsha, Khayelitsha in the City of Cape Town. Despite living there for the past three years, these families have no toilets and must relieve themselves either in a bucket, a plastic bag, or in the open spaces behind bushes. Women in Siqalokutsha told me how they worry about their exposure to infection from relieving themselves in buckets and bags, and of the risk of rape that they face every time they must relieve themselves behind bushes.
Siqalokutsha is situated on privately owned land, but that does not mean these families are not entitled to receive basic sanitation from the City of Cape Town. In his recent SABC interview, Mr Siboniso Ndlovu from the Department of Water and Sanitation confirmed the finding of a High Court case that the responsibility for providing sanitation to people who are living on privately owned land, but not working for the private landowner, rests with that local government.
I also visited the community of Tsitsi Two in Vredenburg, Saldanha Bay, where residents who have lived there for the past 11 years only received chemical toilets for the first time at the end of 2022, and then only one chemical toilet to be shared between 10 to 15 families. This is way below the nationally accepted standard. Residents say that, because there are not enough toilets and because of the long distances they must walk to reach a toilet, they have no choice but to relieve themselves in buckets. A huge pile of trash and human excrement lies in the centre of Tsitsi Two – a visual mockery of this community’s right to health and dignity.
South Africans living without basic sanitation experience a daily violation of their human rights which cannot be accepted or tolerated. ActionSA Western Cape has this week lodged complaints with the South African Human Rights Commission about the violation of the human rights experienced by the communities of Siqalokutsha and, Tsitsi Two.
ActionSA will continue to fight for the poor, marginalized and forgotten people of the Western Cape.