Human Rights Month

As we focus on Human rights this month; we would like to reflect & create awareness on Human Rights, a subject that is rarely spoken of. This is about YOU and YOUR rights.

Human rights are inherent to all human beings, whatever your race, your gender, your age, ethnicity, your place of residence, your language or creed. We are all equally entitled to our human rights without discrimination; the right to life, liberty, freedom of thought and expression, and equal treatment before the law, among others.

Human rights are interrelated and the inclusion of each on South Africa’s Bill of Rights increases the coverage of protection for the people in this country.

This Bill of Rights is a cornerstone of democracy in South Africa. It enshrines the rights of all people in our country and affirms the democratic values of human dignity, equality and freedom. The state must respect, protect, promote and fulfil the rights in the Bill of Rights.

How South Africa’s Human Rights Day came about

The Sharpeville Massacre

 It has been 43 years since the Sharpeville massacre which occurred on 21 March in 1960. The massacre took place at a police station in the South African township of Sharpeville in the Transvaal (today part of Gauteng). After a day of demonstrations, at which a crowd of black protesters far outnumbered the police, the South African police opened fire on the crowd, killing 69 people. Sources disagree as to the behaviour of the crowd; some state that the crowd were peaceful, while others state that the crowd had been hurling stones at the police, and that the shooting started when the crowd started advancing toward the fence around the police station. In present-day South Africa, 21 March is celebrated as a public holiday in honour of human rights and to commemorate the Sharpeville massacre.

Pass laws

Since the 1920s, the movements of black South Africans had been restricted by pass laws. Leading up to the Sharpeville massacre, the apartheid-supporting National Party government under the leadership of Hendrik Verwoerd used these laws to enforce greater segregation and, in 1959-1960, extended them to include women. From the 1960s, the pass laws were the primary instrument used by the state to arrest and harass its political opponents. By the same token, it was mainly the popular resistance, mobilised against those pass laws, that kept resistance politics alive during this period.

The African National Congress (ANC) had decided to launch a campaign of protests against pass laws. These protests were to begin on 31 March 1960, but the rival Pan-Africanist Congress (PAC) decided to pre-empt the ANC by launching its own campaign ten days earlier, on 21 March, because they believed that the ANC could not win the campaign.

The demonstrators in the township of Sharpeville were protesting against the pass laws of the time. Many of these people were shot in the back as they turned to flee, 69 of them were killed.

From that day on the 21st of March became known as South African Freedom Day.

As part of TBT’s campaign to increase awareness on human rights (especially to women and young people), we will be posting The Human Rights Articles as they appear on the South African Bill of Rights and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.


Know YOUR Rights!!!