By Michael Clements | Acting National Director
After being detained for nearly three months in a correctional facility in the City of Tshwane, South Africa, nine informal waste reclaimers were freed in July 2020 after an urgent court intervention by Lawyers for Human Rights (LHR).
The men, who survive by sorting through rubbish for recyclable materials to make an income, were purportedly arrested for breaking the COVID-19 regulations then in place. Rather than simply being charged with a fine, the men were jailed and were subsequently difficult to trace. LHR attorneys were unable to consult with them during this period.
On 8 July, the men were released on order of the High Court after LHR's intervention. The Court expressed its displeasure at the treatment of the men while in custody.
The case was part of a series of legal interventions made by LHR on behalf of the waste reclaimer community, which provides an essential service to South Africans by helping to collect and recycle waste, but lives at the very bottom of the socioeconmic spectrum.
"This is an enormously vulnerable group in South African society, frequently targeted and discriminated against", said Louise du Plessis, head of LHR's Land and Housing Programme. "We are committed to ensuring that the rights of the country's most marginalised are not only respected, but protected. And certainly these hardworking individuals are part of that group".
LHR's legal interventions on behalf of the waste reclaimer community form part of a broader organisational effort focused on rights protection for informal and vulnerable workers. The informal sector, despite being home to some one out of every six South Africans, is "forgotten" in many ways, leaving wide scope for rights violations, to which LHR is committed to redressing.
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