Programme News
16 May 2013
(News)
Laywers for Human Rights are set on paving the way for future land reform and creating a precedent on how displaced communities will settle with support from the government in future.
3 May 2013
(Press release)
Lawyers for Human Rights is pushing to set a land reform precedent in post-settlement support by which future land claims will follow.
LHR on Thursday made submissions in the Supreme Court of Appeal in a bid to have an earlier decision overturned relating to the Baphring community that is trying to have tribal land returned.
The Baphiring case was punted by the SCA as one of the first to set a...
3 May 2013
(News)
Lawyers for Human Rights has scored a first-round victory for the rights of eight children seeking asylum in South Africa, but who have been separated from their parents for various reasons.
The children – aged from six to 16 – may now for the first time enter South Africa’s education system.
30 April 2013
(Press release)
The North Gauteng High Court ordered today that eight separated minors living in South Africa be allowed to register for and attend public school. The issue arose after public schools were threatened with fines for allowing these children into school.
Separated children have been refused entry into South African public schools over of a lack of documentation and status because the Department of...
30 April 2013
(News)
South Africa attracts the largest number of asylum seekers in the world, but grants refugee status to very few of them, ranking only thirty-sixth in the world for the size of its refugee population, which the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) puts at about 58,000.
The Department of Home Affairs, the government ministry tasked with managing the asylum system, approved just 15.5 percent of the applications...
30 April 2013
(News)
South Africa attracts the largest number of asylum seekers in the world, but grants refugee status to very few of them, ranking only thirty-sixth in the world for the size of its refugee population, which the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) puts at about 58,000.
The Department of Home Affairs, the government ministry tasked with managing the asylum system, approved just 15.5 percent of the applications...
29 April 2013
(News)
When a decision to eradicate hostels around Tshwane was taken, the “good news” was welcomed by those who lived in the hostels and the community alike.
These included hostel dwellers in Mamelodi, Atteridegville and Soshanguve townships.
This was not an isolated project with the provincial government also promising to set the ball rolling to eradicate hostels in Soweto and the...
29 April 2013
(News)
The Tshwane municipality and the Gauteng Department of Housing and Human Settlements have spent millions of rand of ratepayers’ money on a block of apartments that do not meet building requirements fit for people to live in.
In one of the most glaring examples of how corruption and mismanagement in the city affects people desperate for housing, the municipality and the province paid...
29 April 2013
(News)
The Supreme Court of Appeal will on Thursday hear an appeal against a judgment by the Land Claims Court over the Baphiring community in North West, which is seeking to regain title to what it says are its ancestral lands.
This comes at a time when the government has spent R69bn on land reform since 1994, with only about 8% of the targeted land redistributed. The government had initially planned...
26 April 2013
(News)
Most asylum seekers arrive in host countries with no evidence to prove they have fled persecution. This means the success of their applications for refugee status depends largely on whether their stories are believed. But the credibility of asylum seekers is increasingly being called into question, particularly in countries that receive large numbers of asylum claims.
Some migrants with no hope...