South African Human Rights Commission

The objectives are to:

•Develop an awareness of human rights among the people of South Africa;

•Make recommendations to organs of state in order to enhance the implementation of human rights;

•Undertake studies and report to Parliament on matters relating to human rights; and

•Investigate complaints of violations of human rights and to seek appropriate redress.

The installation of a complaints handling database (CHARMS) is almost complete. The program enables the SAHRC to call up reports according to rights violated. Every action taken in a complaint file features in the report. Here follows a breakdown of national complaints handling which totaled 6265 during this reporting period. National Statistics Equality 32%Refugees 7%Health care 9%Administrative Action 8%Labor 10%Freedom & security of the person 12%Education 12%Access to courts 10% As you can see most of the complaints were made about the equality issuesin Africa today.

Income ·        One of the largest income inequalities in the world·        Average income of the richest 20% is 45 times more then the average income of the poorest 20%·        10% of the richest South Africans earn in excess of 50% of country’s economic wealth·        40% of the poorest earn less than 6% of Gross Domestic Product·        15% of women-headed households are among the poorest 20% as compared to 5% of male-headed households·        “Gender disparities in income is a structural feature of societies the world over. As the UN puts it “Women are over half the world’s people one third of the official workforce and do two-thirds of the world’s work- hours. Yet they receive only one-tenth of the world’s income and own less than one-hundredth of the world’s property.”·        Women average 2 more years of education then African men, on this basis their salaries should be 20% more, but on average are only 67% of a man’s salary

Male Domination

 

• comes from gender inequalities is reflected in rapes, femicides, and other sexual violence

• affecting mostly poor women

• 1 in every 3 women in South Africa is in an abusive relationship

• 1 women is killed by her partner every 6 days

• a rape occurs every 35 seconds

Obstacles for Women

 • maternal mortality rate averages 606 per every 100,000 live births

• this compared with 7 for the US and 351 for all developing countries

• women are particularly vulnerable victims of the continent’s internal conflicts

• adult female literacy was only 45% as compared to a 59% average for developing countries

Human Rights Links http://www.hrw.org/ http://www.derechos.org/human-rights/afr/ http://www.irinnews.org/frontpage.asp http://www.globalsolidarity.org/povsouth.htm