SOUTH
AFRICA
World
Report 2001 Entry
World
Report 1999 Entry
World
Report 1999 Entry
World
Report 1998 Entry
Queston of Principle: Arms Trade and Human Rights
South Africa is not living up to its
own high standards with respect to arms exports, Human Rights Watch charged
today. In this report, "A Question of Principle: Arms Trade
and Human Rights," Human Rights Watch charged the South
African government with selling weapons to countries with serious
human rights problems, where an influx of weaponry could significantly
worsen ongoing abuses. Human Rights Watch noted that after 1994,
South Africa announced more restrictive policies on arms transfers.
But the report charges that those policies are not always being followed.
In 1994, a scandal erupted involving the sale by Armscor, the apartheid-era
governmental arms export agency, of weapons to Yemen for probable
on-shipment to the former Yugoslavia, then under U.N. embargo. The
Human Rights Watch report cited examples of weapons sales since 1994 to
governments engaging in repression against their own people or to countries
involved in their own or others' civil wars. These sales clearly violated
South Africa's own stated policies. Purchasers of South African arms include
Algeria, Angola, Colombia, the Republic of Congo (Brazzaville), India,
Namibia, Pakistan, Rwanda, Uganda, and Zimbabwe.
(A1205), 10/00, 48pp., $5.00
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online
Prohibited
Persons
Abuse
of Undocumented Migrants, Asylum Seekers, and Refugees in South Africa
Unpunished attacks on foreigners in South
Africa are disturbingly common; and foreigners are regularly victimized
by the South African police,the army, and by guards at detention facilities.
Detention conditions for migrants awaiting deportation are substandard
and overcrowded. South Africa's treatment of refugees is also troubling,
and fails to conform with international standards. South Africa still lacks
refugee legislation. The current ad-hoc system for deciding asylum cases
is characterized by pervasive bribery and corruption, arbitrary decisions,
an inadequate appeals process, and long waiting periods. Asylum-seekers
tell of abuse at the hands of police: at least one refugee from Burundi
has died after apparently being beaten in police custody. The number of
deportations from South Africa has quadrupled in the last decade. The great
majority of the almost 200,000 deported each year are from neighboring
countries. Migrants are often identified by police through arbitrary means
Andre pressured into paying bribes for their release. Nearly one-fifth
of those arrested and mistakenly detained for migration violations are
black South Africans or legal residents. This report calls upon the South
African government to take immediate steps to bring national law and practice
relating to migration and refugee determination into line with international
standards and to put into place the institutional structures necessary
to ensure that the human rights of all those living in South Africa are
respected.
(1819) 3/98, 248 pp., ISBN 1-56432-181-9,
$15.00
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Violence against
Women and the Medico-Legal System
This report focuses mainly on one aspect of the criminal justice system
and its handling of violence against women: the performance of those involved
in the provision of medical expertise to the courts when it is alleged
that women have been abused. Medical evidence is often a crucial element
in the investigation and prosecution of a case of rape or sexual assault.
Many rape cases result in acquittals simply because, if the only evidence
before the court consists of the differing accounts given by the woman
and man, the man will be given the benefit of the doubt; medical evidence,
where it is available, may provide the only corroboration of the woman's
allegations. While the absence of medical evidence does not indicate that
no assault occurred, it is essential that medico-legal examinations be
carried out promptly, expertly and objectively, to ensure that crucial
evidence to support the case is not passed over. Police and court officials
must be equipped to evaluate that evidence and to ensure that it is properly
used. The report concludes that the medico-legal system in South Africa
is deeply flawed, with problems of inaccessibility, prejudice and lack
of training at all levels.
(A904) 8/97, 54 pp., $5.00/£2.95
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VIOLENCE
AGAINST WOMEN IN SOUTH AFRICA
State
Response to Domestic Violence and Rape
The new South African government has pledged to ensure women a full
and equal role in every aspect of the economy and society. Yet South African
women continue to face extraordinarily high levels of violence which prevent
them from enjoying the rights they are guaranteed under the new dispensation.
Domestic violence and sexual assault are pervasive and are directed almost
exclusively against women. South African women’s organizations estimate
that perhaps as many as one in every three women will be raped and that
one in six women is in an abusive domestic relationship.South African women
victims of violence continue to face a judicial and police system that
routinely denies them redress. Women, regardless of race, complain of indifferent
or hostile treatment from the criminal justice system; and black women
in particular face lingering racial prejudice in their interactions with
the authorities. Police are frequently ignorant of the laws protecting
women from violence and, within the courts, judges often discount rape
survivors’ testimony and give lenient sentences to rapists.
(1622) 11/95, 144 pp., ISBN 1-56432-162-2, $10.00/£8.95
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THREATS TO A NEW
DEMOCRACY
Continuing Violence
in KwaZulu-Natal
For the last decade South Africa’s KwaZulu-Natal region has been troubled
by political violence. This conflict escalated during the 4 years of negotiations
for a transition to democratic rule, and reached the status of a virtual
civil war in the last months before the national elections of April 1994,
significantly disrupting the election process. Although the first year
of democratic government in South Africa has led to a decrease in the monthly
death toll, the figures remain high enough to threaten the process of national
reconstruction. In particular, violence may prevent the establishment of
democratic local government structures in KwaZulu-Natal following further
elections scheduled to be held on November 1, 1995.
(A703) 5/95, 38 pp., $5.00/£2.95
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IMPUNITY FOR HUMAN RIGHTS
ABUSES IN TWO HOMELANDS
Reports on KwaZulu and Bophuthatswana
Researched and written prior to the 1994 elections in South Africa,
this report describes how the former South African government failed to
fulfill its obligations to protect its citizens from violence and guarantee
the exercise of their political rights in two homelands.
(A602) 3/94, 23 pp., $3.00/£1.95
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Prison Conditions in South Africa
While visiting over twenty prisons as well as lockups in at least five
different cities throughout South Africa, we found significant improvements
had been made since the political climate began to change in 1990. Nevertheless,
South Africa’s prisoner-to-population ratio is among the highest in the
world, and many aspects of prison life remain depressingly unchanged from
the years of official apartheid. South African prisons are places of extreme
violence, where assaults on prisoners by guards or fellow inmates are common
and often fatal. Beginning in the 1960s, ever-larger numbers of political
prisoners were added to the South African prison population. Their writings
and legal challenges to the authorities contributed to an international
outcry, and as opposition to apartheid outside the prison system became
steadily more effective during the 1970s and 1980s, the response of the
authorities also affected the situation inside prison walls. In 1990, President
F. W. de Klerk announced the end of the state of emergency, the unbanning
of the African National Congress and the release of Nelson Mandela and
other political prisoners. Since then, the prison system has been part
of the general movement to reform government institutions that has accompanied
the negotiations, and significant amendments to the Prisons Act of 1911
have been introduced. This report details the successes and failures of
these reform efforts.
(1266) 1/94, 136 pp., ISBN 1-56432-126-6, $10.00/£8.95
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“TRADITIONAL” DICTATORSHIP
One Party State in KwaZulu Homeland
Threatens Transition to Democracy
In examining the human rights record of the government of the KwaZulu
homeland in Natal province of South Africa, we found that it does not support
Chief Buthelezi’s claim that he is a democrat. KwaZulu is a one-party state,
in which the institutions of Inkatha and those of the homeland administration
are virtually indistinguishable. Only Inkatha has freedom to organize within
the homeland, and freedom of expression, assembly, and association for
other groups is routinely denied.
(A512) 9/93, 45 pp., $5.00/£2.95
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HALF-HEARTED REFORM
The Official Response to the Rising Tide of Violence
The greatest obstacle to the transition to a peaceful democracy in
South Africa is the political violence that continues to rage in the black
townships. The violence, which began in 1984 and gained greater momentum
after reform initiatives were undertaken in 1990, has resulted in more
than 14,000 deaths. This report analyzes the extent to which the South
African government and security forces have implemented the recommendations
previously made by Africa Watch and finds that some minor efforts have
been taken, though these steps fall far short of a serious attempt to end
the violence.
(1002) 5/93, 82 pp., ISBN 1-56432-100-2, $7.00/£5.95
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(A411) Accounting for the Past, 10/92,
28 pp., $5.00/£2.95
(A316) Ciskei: 10 Years on Human Rights
& the Fiction of "Independence," 12/91, 30 pp., $5.00/£2.95
(A312) Out of Sight: The Misery in Bophuthatswana,
9/91, 24 pp., $3.00/£1.95
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