Promoting sexual and reproductive health and rights for women with albinism in Africa
Posted: 11 September, 2020 Filed under: Satang Nabaneh | Tags: Africa, albinism, contraception, CRPD, discrimination, have limited knowledge on albinism, health care, human rights violations, infanticide, International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) Programme of Action, lack of access to education, Maputo Protocol, maternal care, physical abuse, physical attacks, sexual violence, stereotypes, stigma, unemployment, unwanted pregnancies Leave a comment
Author: Satang Nabaneh
Post-doctoral Fellow, Centre for Human Rights, University of Pretoria
Discrimination and stigma relating to persons with albinism remain the norm in many Africa countries. Persons with albinism have been subjected to gross human rights violations. In some extreme cases, persons with albinism in the African region have been killed for rituals or subjected to other physical abuse. While attention has been given to the killings of persons with albinism worldwide, little attention has been given to other human rights violations they encounter while seeking social services, particularly health care services. Deep-rooted prejudices and stereotypes about persons with albinism tend to aggravate human rights violations they experience. Discrimination against persons with albinism can lead to deleterious health consequences and at the same time hinder access to care for them.
Academics and pandemics: A student’s perspective during the lockdown
Posted: 26 May, 2020 Filed under: Ross Booth | Tags: academia, anxiety, contact learning, COVID-19, data bundles, demoralising, law, law student, LLB, lockdown, online learning, pandemic, stressful time, student, student life, students, UKZN, unemployment, work ethic, zoom calls Leave a comment
Author: Ross Booth
Third year LLB student, University of KwaZulu-Natal
For a lot of people (including myself) the 1st of January 2020 felt like a day that couldn’t come sooner. 2019 had been an especially difficult study year with the leap from first to second year comparable to an Olympic long jump. However, what I didn’t anticipate is that 2020 would spiral into disaster, almost from the get go.
UKZN students began the year in the usual fashion – one or two introductory lectures followed by an extra two weeks of holiday as our colleagues vented their frustration at the University and NSFAS respectively. However, the SRC and relevant university officials managed to quash the unrest relatively early on and lectures slowly began to commence accordingly. In conversation with a classmate shortly thereafter, I recall uttering the phrase “the worst is over” regarding the likelihood that the strikes would continue. As is always the case, good old Murphy was eavesdropping around a corner, holding his satchel of bad luck – preparing the unthinkable. And like clockwork, a virus initially described as a strong case of the sniffles managed to globetrot its way from Wuhan to sunny Durban – taking a few pit stops on the way. With that, the university was once again closed and lectures ground to a halt.
Double trouble: Consulting for a fair retrenchment
Posted: 3 April, 2017 Filed under: Rochelle le Roux | Tags: bumping, case law, consultation, employee, employer, employment, fairness, labour law, legislation, legislative developments, operation requirements, procedural, retrenchment, retrenchment law, Sputh Africa, substantive, unemployment, unfiar dismissal Leave a comment
Author: Prof Rochelle le Roux
Director of the Institute of Development and Labour Law; Professor in the Faculty of Law, University of Cape Town (UCT)
Most employers and employees have a broad understanding that the fairness of a dismissal rests on both a substantive and a procedural leg.
On the one hand, substantive unfairness, in broad strokes, suggests that an employee who should not have been dismissed, had been dismissed.
The legislature had chosen to express substantive fairness with reference to the employee’s misconduct or incapacity and the operational requirements of the employer. A dismissal for the latter reason is often referred to as retrenchment.
On the other hand, procedural unfairness implies that the employee had not been given an opportunity to be heard by the employer before the dismissal was affected. There is at least one practical reason for distinguishing between procedural and substantive fairness: when a dismissal is unfair only because the employer did not follow a fair procedure, the competent remedy is generally only payment of compensation and not reinstatement as would be the case when the dismissal is either substantively, or both substantively and procedurally, unfair.
On constitutional values, Marikana and the demise of the SADC Tribunal
Posted: 23 August, 2012 Filed under: Magnus Killander | Tags: African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights, criminal procedure, extreme inequalities, human rights, public violence, right to a fair trial, SADC, South African Constitution, unemployment 6 Comments
Author: Magnus Killander
Senior Lecturer & Head of Research, Centre for Human Rights, University of Pretoria
Section 1 of the Constitution sets out the founding values of the Republic of South Africa: dignity, equality, human rights, non-racialism, non-sexism, constitutional supremacy, rule of law, regular elections, accountability, responsiveness and openness.
The tragic shootings in Marikana, which took place on 16 August 2012, have led not only to much needed discussion on how equipped and prepared the police are to respond to violent protest, but also discussion about the underlying factors which led to these protests, and why they were so violent. Important questions must be asked about the shootings. Video footage of the incident suggests that it was not a clear cut case of self-defence. Accountability must prevail, both for workers responsible for violence and the police. Hopefully the Commission of Inquiry, established by President Jacob Zuma, will receive a broad mandate to investigate not only the shootings, but also a range of related issues related to what happened before and after.
AfricLaw 