Impunity and evictions in South Africa
Who do you turn to when the government is the one breaking the law?
South Africa has strict laws intended to protect people from being evicted without due process and the country’s COVID-19 lockdown has restricted evictions even further – banning them completely for nine weeks and now requiring additional judicial scrutiny.
Yet, housing activists say hundreds – maybe thousands – of people have been illegally evicted from their homes since the lockdown began in March – evictions ordered by municipal governments and carried out by law enforcement agencies in what appears to be a flagrant violation of both the lockdown regulations and regular South African law.
In one case, 29 women were evicted from shacks during the hard lockdown. With nowhere to go, they slept in an open field and were arrested by the South African Police Service for violating the lockdown, according to the Church Land Programme, a housing-focused NGO based in the province of KwaZulu-Natal.
“These evictions are dehumanizing people whose dignity is already compromised in many ways,” says S’bu Zikode, the president of Abahlali baseMjondolo, a community organization whose Zulu name translates to “the people of the shacks”.
“It has reminded us that we are the people that do not count in our society.”
You can read more about the fight over “land invasions,” illegal evictions and the roots of South Africa’s housing crisis on CityMetric: https://www.citymetric.com/fabric/south-africas-cities-evictions-are-happening-despite-national-ban-5226