Resource information
For a number of years, community structures and civil society organisations have expressed concerns with the failings of the government’s land reform programme. There have been growing calls for a review of the land reform programme framework to address issues which impact on the tenure security and livelihoods strategies of rural communities in South Africa.
The Department of Land Affairs has indicated that it intends to present to the National Parliament in August this year an amalgamated law which will combine aspects of the Extension of Security of Tenure Act (62 of 1997) and the Land Reform (Labour Tenants) Act 3 of 1996. These two Acts give farm dwellers certain land rights on farms in South Africa.
During the past few months AFRA has been engaged in extensive consultations with people who live on farms across the commercial farming districts of Bergville, Eston, Mid-Illovo, Greytown, New Hanover, Vryheid, Nottingham Road, Howick, Mooi River, Estcourt, Winterton, Utrecht, Ladysmith, Dannhauser, Newcastle, Ingogo, Impendle, Camperdown, Ixopo and Paulpietersburg in KwaZulu Natal. As part of its commitment to ensuring that all citizens of KwaZulu Natal are able to participate in and contribute to laws which impact on their livelihoods and tenure security, AFRA facilitated this series of workshops with rural communities during the months of May and June which focussed on issues which affect farm dweller communities in the province.
The workshops were intended to provide a platform for farm dwellers to discuss their understanding of the challenges which impact on their livelihoods and tenure security and also to articulate concerns about problems and failings of the government’s national land reform programme, with recommendations for resolving such. These discussions have raised issues which AFRA believes need to be heard. They pose a significant challenge to Government and to civil society in that they raise hard hitting perspectives about how farm dwellers see their relationship to their homes and the land, perceptions about rights which they do and do not have, and about what the future holds. The central concerns relate to ownership of land and rights to reside on land.
There are however, disturbing accounts of the negative impact of current legislation, abuse of human rights, limitations on Constitutional rights to education, and basic services and resources. There is also a growing dissatisfaction with powerlessness, landlessness and ongoing assaults on the dignity and integrity of their families, their homes and their livelihoods. This report is a consolidated verbatim account of the responses from farm dwellers participating in sixteen smaller group discussions within the four workshops. A document summarising the issues and providing an analysis is also available, as are a number of issue-based summaries.