Michael Komape, Lumka Mkhethwa and now Langalam Viki. These are all names on the list of SA’s roll call of shame with the death of Langalam two weeks ago casting a pall on the celebration of Human Rights Day on Tuesday.
Five-year-old Michael died in 2014 after falling into a pit toilet at his primary school in Limpopo. Four years later, in 2018, five-year-old Lumka also fell into a plain pit toilet at school in the Eastern Cape. Two weeks ago, the lifeless body of four-year-old Langalam was discovered at her school at Glen Grey in the Eastern Cape after she had failed to return home the previous day.
As investigations into her death continue, the department of basic education (DBE) has insisted that her death was not due to lack of sanitation infrastructure. The latest death has intensified calls for the government to do more to eradicate pit toilets.
Amnesty International executive director Shenilla Mohamed said: “This is deeply sad and unacceptable. This child’s death comes a week after the DBE missed yet another deadline to eradicate all illegal plain pit toilets from schools.”
She said failure shows total disregard for the basic human rights of pupils and violated their rights to sanitation, health, education, dignity and privacy. Even more ominously, these structures posed a serious risk to the right to life.
In 2013, the DBE adopted the minimum uniform norms and standards for public schools, which gave both the national and provincial education departments the responsibility to ensure complete eradication of pit toilets.
In its 2020 report, Amnesty SA recommended replacing all unsafe and unsanitary plain pit toilets by the end of 2020 and eradicating all pit toilets by 2023.
“The fact that more than 5,100 schools still have pit toilets, a decade after the adoption of the norms and standards, shows a huge failure on the part of the education departments, and how they have disregarded the commitments in the school infrastructure law,” says Equal Education researcher, Elizabeth Biney.
It was with utter outrage to learn from a statement by the Centre for Child Law (CCL) and Section27 that the provincial education department had forfeited R100m of the education infrastructure grant meant for public schools. This is nothing but utter criminal negligence and incompetence by the ANC government.
After missing the deadline of safe and acceptable sanitation, Amnesty International released a press statement on March 1, just a few days before the latest tragedy, that, “By missing deadlines, providing unreliable data and staying silent on the status of the plain pit toilets and amendments to the regulations, the DBE is evading accountability, thereby further widening the gap of access to quality education in an already unequal school system.”
With this year’s Human Rights Day theme of “Consolidating and Sustaining Human Rights Culture into the Future”, the question is whether what prevails represents a consolidation or a weakening of the human rights . For the families of the three children these words are nothing but empty slogans.
Our weak ANC-led state has clearly failed to live up to the aspirations of so many . Section 28 of the Bill of Rights, which states , “Every child has the right to basic nutrition, shelter, health care and social services, as well as the right to be protected from maltreatment, neglect, abuse or degradation.”
It is clear that the failure to eradicate pit toilets completely lies with an incapable state, which cannot deliver services. The ANC government has failed to improve the lives of poor citizens, especially in the rural areas .
It cannot be that 29 years after the advent of a democratic government, we still have children drowning in pit toilets.
That certainly brings democracy into disrepute . As we remember the sacrifices of those who died in Sharpeville 63 years ago we need to ensure that no child in SA meets such a gruesome death ever again.
We need change and the 2024 elections will present us with the opportunity to put an end to such horror stories.
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