“Rapes, lice and boxes of condoms”: GOOD reports City of Cape Town to the South African Human Rights Commission over treatment of people at Strandfontein camp
Statement by Mark Rountree, National Policy Officer for GOOD
12 May 2020
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Eye-witness accounts of the conditions in the City of Cape Town’s Strandfontein internment camp for the homeless have been submitted to the South African Human Rights Commission for further investigation.
The eyewitnesses have described
– Alleged gang rapes and abuse of those who were interned;
– Boxes of condoms being handed out in crowded tents each housing hundreds of people;
– Sleeping on hard floodboards, with lice and cockroaches;
– Limited food, brakwater to drink and no toilet paper at smelly, unsafe toilets.
– Law enforcement preventing people leaving and the fining of a man who went to get fresh drinking water from a tap;
– Random citizens – on their way to the shop to buy bread – suddenly being rounded up with gangsters and all being taken to the camp.
This evidence contradicts statements by the DA that people were free to come and go as they please; that safe, healthy conditions were being maintained at the camp and questions the efficacy of the reported R32 million of ratepayers money spent on the camp.
The lies from the DA’s JP Smith – saying there were enough shelters after being questioned about fining the homeless – misled many ratepayers in to believing that all the homeless could be accommodated in shelters. One NGO worker’s car was petrol-bombed last week after being warned by some Sea Point residents to stop feeding hungry people. The truth is that less than half of the city’s homeless can fit in to existing shelters. There are less than 2000 spaces for 4000 homeless.
GOOD welcomes the City of Cape Town finally agreeing to expand existing shelters and embark on a decentralised provision of support in conjunction with NGOs. This is what we had recommended a month ago.
However, the suppression of human rights; facilitation of rapes and contravention of national regulations to stop the spread of Covid19 cannot simply be brushed under the carpet. We must all care for one another and the government is accountable to all. The eye witness accounts of conditions in the camp have been submitted to the SAHRC for further investigation.
Ends ….
Link to the video: https://www.facebook.com/WAARHEIDnews/videos/249695089450158/