Mitchell’s Plain youth had their voices heard during a dialogue on human rights.
Participants, aged between 15 and 24, shed some light on the challenges they faced daily living under their parents’ roofs and having to abide by their rules, peer pressure and having freedom of choice and association; and being too young to decide for themselves.
According to the South African constitution human rights are inherent to all, regardless of nationality, sex, national or ethnic origin, colour, religion, language or any other status.
Facilitator Zandile Myeki, community support officer and human rights programme coordinator for non-profit organisation (NPO) Amandla Development, read out a few human rights and participants voiced their thoughts.
Pertaining to equality the constitution reads: “Everyone is equal before the law and has the right to equal protection and benefit of the law”.
They questioned whether a criminal had the same rights as a law abiding citizen.
Participant Rafique May suggested the death penalty be instated but another participant Angela Julie asked about the accused on death row being wrongly accused.
He also queried whether crime would be reduced if people were deterred by the death penalty.
Ms Myeki also asked whether vigilantes who took revenge were also seen as criminals.
The dialogue was hosted by Advance Edukos Foundation at Rocklands Library on Thursday June 13.
Participant Cuan Witbooi, from Westridge, was torn as to whether he was safe in his community.
He said if he kept his head down and stayed in doors away from trouble he would not be in harm’s way.
He also said that even if he witnessed a crime he would not report anything because he would be in danger.
“If you need to be safe – get out of the way. Go home. You are responsible to remove yourself from unsafe situations. I am safe in my home,” he said. “Everyone has the right to freedom and security of the person,” is another right.“
Some youth said the police were working with the gangsters.
To “Everyone has the right to freedom of association,” participants said they would have to be really strong-willed to hang out with a group of people who smoked and they themselves did not smoke.
They said when they hang out with certain groups of people, the community would denote certain characteristics from just looking at them, which was unfair.
Ms Julie said it was rather difficult to break from traditions if you were raised in a certain way.
Ms Myeki explained that youth needed to change themselves in order to have an impact on their community.
“And that change can only happen if we know our rights.
“There are criminals amongst us but we can only tell the difference if we report crime and are active in our communities, whether it is with the neighbourhood watch or SAPS partners,” she said.
