Pretoria - The DA has vowed to launch a legal battle against the Department of Basic Education following the discovery of the body of a 4-year-old in an Eastern Cape pit latrine earlier this month.
DA leader John Steenhuisen, along with DA Eastern Cape provincial leader Andrew Whitfield, spokesperson for Basic Education Baxolile Nodada, spokesperson for Education Edmund van Vuuren and DA North East Cape Constituency head Sanele Magaqa, visited the bereaved family in Glen Grey village in the Eastern Cape.
Langlam Viki was found dead in the pit latrine after the mother visited the school on March 7 to inquire about her whereabouts after she failed to come home on the Monday.
After the visit, Steenhuisen said South Africans had become desensitised to these tragic deaths, which occur frequently in provinces across the country under ANC-run governments.
He said no child should have to meet this fate in South Africa, almost 30 years since the dawn of our democracy.
“Over successive years, the DA has asked a number of parliamentary questions around the use of pit toilets in all provinces, the replies to which have shown little to no progress in eradicating this deadly infrastructure.
“A 2021 Limpopo High Court judgment, handed down by Judge Gerrit Muller, ordered that a plan to eradicate all pit toilets in the province of Limpopo be provided to the court along with a detailed implementation plan.”
Steenhuisen said that judgment, however, had no bearing on other provinces, and while the SA Human Rights Commission had promised to take broader legal action, its papers have, to date, not been filed.
Other learners who died in pit latrines include 7-year-old Lister Magongwa, who died in 2013 in Limpopo, 5-year-old Oratilwe Dilwane, who died in 2016 in North West, and 6-year-old Siyamthanda Mtunu, who died in 2017.
He said on Human Rights Day the DA launched a 2-point plan to eradicate school pit toilets across South Africa to ensure that no family ever endures the tragic indignity suffered by the Viki family.
Steenhuisen said the drowning of children in pit toilets went far beyond a human rights violation: “It is a horror that no South African should ever be forced to contemplate.”
To address this, the DA would, in consultation with its lawyers, be starting litigation proceedings to find the quickest and most effective means to instruct governments across the country to erect proper sanitation facilities for all schoolchildren as a fundamental human right.
“Given the immense interest in achieving this goal from all sectors of society, we will engage with civil society organisations, public advocacy groups and NGOs working in the education space to put together a strong case,” Steenhuisen said.
He said Nodada would also be launching a countrywide campaign to eradicate pit toilets, which would include widespread oversight visits of all school infrastructure, or a lack thereof, which may place the life of a child at risk.
“It is clear that while the ANC national government has cut education budgets to bail out ailing state-owned entities, and presided over government departments where billions have been lost to corruption, it does not care that young children do not have a safe place to relieve themselves in dignity, without the threat of death.
“We must never lose sight of the basic rights of which millions are still deprived.
“Until all South Africans have access to three meals a day, until every citizen has access to housing and sanitation, and until all South Africans can live in dignity, we will never truly be free,” Steenhuisen said.
He said his party would ensure that freedom was afforded to all South Africans, even the 4-year-old child without a voice who simply wishes to use the bathroom safely at school.
Pretoria News