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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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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