This is a user-friendly guide that explains the rights of farm dwellers and the law in relation to evictions from farmland. It gives advice on how farm dwellers can navigate the legal processes involved in eviction proceedings and practically resist evictions. It is a resource for farm dwellers facing eviction from their homes, as well as for farm worker unions, community-based paralegals and lawyers. The guide was developed by SERI and the Commercial Stevedoring Agricultural and Allied Workers Union (CSAAWU).

Relocations have the potential to severely disrupt peoples’ lives and negatively impact their livelihoods, community relations and sense of security. To make sure this doesn’t happen, the relocation process should be carefully planned, well-run and participatory. SERI developed this set of legal and practical guidelines to assist those involved in the relocation process to navigate the complexities involved in planning for and carrying out a relocation.

The report provides a brief history of farm labour in South Africa tracing its roots in slavery and colonial dispossession through to the emergence of state supported commercial agriculture and the subsequent deregulation of the agricultural sector. This is with a view to contextualising the examination of tenure security and identifying the impacts on people living and working on land owned by others. The report provides a scan of the legal reforms and measures instituted in the first decade of democracy in order to reverse the injustices of the past.

As of 2017, the City of Cape Town offers little support to residents who will become homeless because of eviction, except a one way ticket to a relocation camp on the periphery of the city.  Good law led to a clear obligation to provide temporary emergency accommodation but was very poorly implemented. Relocation camps on the periphery isolate residents from community networks and affect their ability to access good services and income. 

This is a documentary collating the experiences and stories of rural communities supported by the Association for Rural Advancement (AFRA).

AFRA, in partnership with OZA and TA, assists women, youth and men residing or working on rural commercial farmland in the UMgungundlovu District to mobilise around key issues impacting on their quality of life and access to sustainable livelihoods, engaging with and influencing policies and processes that impact on their land and development rights.

Issues surrounding labour tenancy in South Africa are controversial and complex. The issue is controversial in that that it currently reflects a struggle over access to land and tenure security that spans more than a century. The controversy surrounding labour tenancy derives from the fact that the role players within this scenario often hold widely differentiated perceptions about each other’s rights, duties and respective power relationships.

Issues surrounding labour tenancy in South Africa are controversial and complex. The issue is controversial in that that it currently reflects a struggle over access to land and tenure security that spans more than a century. The controversy surrounding labour tenancy derives from the fact that the role players within this scenario often hold widely differentiated perceptions about each other’s rights, duties and respective power relationships.

The world is increasingly encroaching on indigenous peoples’ traditional lands. Around the globe, indigenous communities are forced to cede ground to state development, corporate land grabs, rising sea levels, environmental degradation, and population growth. The right to land provides the basis for access to food, housing, and development. But for indigenous peoples, traditional lands are more than this; they represent essential ties to their ancestors, their culture, and their languages. Losing their land means losing their way of life.

Dead Donkeys Fear No Hyenas - a documentary thriller about land grabbing and the global rush for farmland - the new green gold! 

While women’s rights to land and property are protected under the Kenyan Constitution of 2010 and in various national statutes, in practice, women remain disadvantaged and discriminated. The main source of restriction is customary laws and practices, which continue to prohibit women from owning or inheriting land and other forms of property.

Every day, more and more family/small holder users of land and natural resources find themselves made more insecure, deprived of their resources and evicted from their land. This affects peasants, nomadic herders, livestock farmers, fishermen and fisherwomen, forest dwellers … (Workshops 1, 2, 3, 5). This change is a dramatic one, affecting the whole of humanity. The direct human consequences of this change affect the vast majority of rural residents, who carry out the essential work of food production and contribute to maintaining ecological balance.

Chaque jour, toujours plus de femmes et hommes utilisateurs familiaux et communautaires des terres et ressources naturelles sont précarisés, dépossédés de leur ressources et évincés de leurs territoires : paysannes et paysans, pasteurs nomades, éleveurs, pêcheurs, habitants des forêts… (ateliers 1, 2, 3, 5). Cette évolution est dramatique pour l’ensemble de l’humanité : ses conséquences humaines directes concernent l’immense majorité des ruraux, qui assurent l’essentiel de la production des aliments et contribuent au maintien des équilibres écologiques.