10

February 23

2013

NEWS
SAMANTHA HARTSHORNE
THE DEPARTMENT of Education, in conjunction with LeadSA, is embarking on an ambitious awareness campaign to educate 10.4 million children in all provinces on the dangers of rape and to call on pupils to take a pledge at 8am on Friday March 1. , Basic Education Minister, Angie Motshekga, said she issued a directive to all provincial education departments to instruct schools across the country to call assemblies at 8am on March 1. The collective rage in the country has to be turned into tangible action, said Motshekga. The directive calls on principals to address the school on the dangers of rape and how to prevent and report it. An undertaking will then be made by the pupils as they simultaneously recite a commitment to human rights. We want to mobilise across the school footprint and launch the pledge where the Bill of Responsibilities is adopted by all learners, said Panyaza Lusufi, special adviser to the minister. The bill was formulated by LeadSA and a number of religious leaders, and has been adopted by the Department of Basic Education in their life orientation classes. The pledge incorporates the basic tenants of the bill with a focus on mutual respect and individual human rights. The mass oath follows a national outcry over Anene Booysens mutilation and subsequent death after she was gang-raped. Lusufi said the department had an

S AT U R D AY S TA R

Handicapped and waiting for trial the story of Prisoner X

He cannot walk and for two years he has had to share a cell meant for 32 with 87 others
AM A 50-year-old paraplegic and have been awaiting trial for more than two years since my arrest on fraud charges in December 2011. I cant walk, I cant control my bowel or bladder and have to wear disposable baby nappies which my family buy for me. I cant feel a thing from my waist down. Im paralysed from Level 4 and dont have a wheelchair. If I use my sticks (crutches) I have to pull my legs and throw them to the front. Thats how I walk. I was shot in my spinal cord which was cut in the middle during a hijacking in the driveway of my house three years before my arrest. Before I was transferred here I was in Joburg prison where the doctor prescribed a wheelchair for me. The doctor here says I must get a wheelchair from an outside hospital, but hasnt referred me. Living here is tough. We are 88 men in this cell which is meant for 32. Sometimes there are even more men. Twelve people sleep in two bunks pushed together, thats six on the top and six on the bottom. I have my own bed on the bottom which is a privilege. Luckily I dont have to share be, cause of my medical status. There are eight or 10 people with TB in this cell and four or five we know to be HIV-positive. A guy with multidrug-resistant TB sleeps above me. I feel vulnerable all the time. Not because Im threatened physically but because Im always called names and treated like an alien. Id rather die than be here. I cant rely on other inmates for help because they change all the time. People come and go, so I have to help myself. My upper body is strong, so I

Rape awareness drive calls for pupils pledge

Prisoner X is a paraplegic remand detainee who, like Oscar Pistorius and one third of all South Africas prison inmates, has not yet been found guilty of crime. Despite the presumption of innocence, a cornerstone of the constitution, the 46 000 remand, or awaiting trial detainees, endure far worse living conditions than sentenced offenders. The story is told to Carolyn Raphaely AR, who is a member of the Wits Justice Project which is a body that investigates miscarriages of justice. The WJP is a project of the Department of Journalism of the University of the Witwatersrand.
just pull my legs along the floor. Theres only one toilet and one shower for this cell. Its so crowded people even sleep on sponges on the toilet floor. Sometimes theres no water in the toilet and it doesnt work. The smell and the flies are horrible. The food in the kitchen is also covered in flies. Its a big mission for me to get food. It takes 30 minutes to drag my legs to the kitchen. Thats why I dont have breakfast, I just drink water. I only go to the kitchen once a day for lunch which is at 11am. The warders in the kitchen wont

allow other prisoners to bring me food, they say I have to fetch it myself. I cant get the right diet here. Prison food is not good for me or anyone with special needs like mine. It gives me indigestion. When I asked for special food and complained about my diet, I was told the Department of Correctional Services had to get recommendations from a dietician. Then I was told the prison budget was R11 a prisoner a day for three meals and that they couldnt afford to give me what I need. Awaiting-trial prisoners are only allowed non-contact visitors during the week. You have to speak to your family through a microphone from behind a glass and you get a maximum of 30 minutes. My family can only visit at weekends because of work commitment. I made a special request for a visit last Saturday which was granted. It was the first time my wife has visited me since 2011 because its so expensive to come here from Joburg it cost her R1 500 for transport and she also brought me R500 worth of food, nappies and medicine. The captain in charge said I wasnt allowed food, only nappies. When I complained, he cut my visit short. I saw my wife for about three minutes. Theres no proper prison hospital here and prisoners die in the cells because they cant get medical attention. When I had bad indigestion and was s**tting blood, it took a week for me to get to the prison hospital. I havent been given any medication since getting here not even a Brufen. I have to wash my pressure

TWO YEARS OF WAITING: Prisoner X is a paraplegic. He has to use nappies and crutches and is in constant pain from pressure sores. He takes 30 minutes to get to the kitchen to fetch his food, which he can only manage once a day.

official booklet on the subject of rape that would be handed out, and they would be engaging with non-governmental organisations to provide support at all schools on Friday . He also said that other departments, like Health and the Department for Women, Children and People with Disabilities are also on board to provide co-ordination. The department said they want to create the channels, like booklets and homework worksheets, that will prepare the children in the following week. The pledge will be available in all 11 official languages. March is human rights month and the schools intervention will tie in well with the bill, said Yusuf Abramjee of LeadSA. He hopes the pledge the children will take will be adopted by all South Africans. We want to open it up to the nation take it to your offices, factories and homes say no to rape, said Abramjee. The pledge will be available on www.leadsa.co.za

COMMENT FROM CORRECTIONAL SERVICES

DEPARTMENT of Correctional Services chief deputy commissioner for remand detention Britta Rotman: We are bound by various sections of the constitution and have very clear policies of our own regarding people with disabilities. Anyone coming into the system will be assessed and appropriate decisions made. Every decision must take into account the security and dignity of the person. We have no control over where an inmate will be sent. This is the decision of the judicial officer and an assessment will be made in terms of the inmates needs and what accommodation is available. Each disability is treated uniquely. We have blind people who are placed where they can be assisted and also people in wheelchairs. A judicial official will make the call and we will act on the warrant. She added that should his details be made available the department would investigate all allegations and assess whether he qualifies for a referral on terms of section 49E of the Correctional Services Act. Multidrug-resistant patients are always kept separate from other inmates. TB patients who are not infectious may be kept in the general population but never XDR or MDR TB patients when infectious. They are kept separate even from hospital patients and very strict rules apply regarding accommodation, she said.

wounds and sores twice a day I . cant even get swabs or bandages. The last time I asked for Savlon, I was told to wash my wounds with salt water. Im in constant pain. Sleep is the only escape. Ive only seen a doctor here once in September last year and he prescribed medical shoes for me. Im still waiting. The prison hospital is worse than the cells. The hospital is just a normal cell with single beds instead of bunks. Its clean, has a tiled floor and isnt as crowded as a cell. Thats the only difference. Actually my cell bed is better than , a hospital bed. If youre sick today you might , see a doctor next week. If you need a painkiller youll have to wait a

week till the doctor comes. Then you wont get medicine. Not because the doctor doesnt want to give you medicine, but because there isnt any . My co-accused all got bail. The main reason I never applied for bail was because I knew I couldnt afford it. My family have managed to raise some money now and Im hoping for a hearing soon. Even my R1 400 disability grant which I used for my seven-year-old daughters schooling has stopped. I asked a social worker here to help me renew it but she said she couldnt because I havent been sentenced yet. The Independent Prison Visitors of the Judicial Inspectorate do come here to take complaints but then nothing happens. Some warders try to help me but others ask me why I think Im so special and require different treatment? Living in these conditions means Ive been sentenced before I am sentenced.

Statistics show presidential hotline is making progress

MARIANNE MERTEN
Political Bureau

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IF YOU live in KwaZulu-Natal, or Gauteng, you are most likely to pick up the phone to call the presidential hotline to complain about shoddy service, which usually relates to problems at the departments of home affairs, human settlements, labour and police. And nine out of ten times, the complaint gets resolved, unless it involves the police where only three out of four matters are resolved, according to 2012 statistics provided by the government. This is a vast improvement from the situation three years ago. Six months after the hotline was launched in 2009, opposition parties visited the Pretoria call centre, where President Jacob Zuma took the first call from a widow from Eastern Cape who complained about a delay in her late husbands pension pay-out. A statistical bun fight ensued over call volumes versus logged cases and the high number of dropped calls. A technical team was put in place and the resolution rate which stood at 39 percent in 2009, improved. By the end of last month, 154 549

cases had been logged and just under nine out of every ten calls had been resolved, said Zuma. The solutions have ranged from delivering a wheelchair to Centani village near Butterworth in the Eastern Cape to ensuring a mother could renew two foster care grants after she was told there were no renewal forms available, and that a widow, whose deceased husband had a second wife, could access benefits after his death. The machinery of the hotline is working, said Mughivela Rambado, who is the director of the presidential hotline and frontline service delivery . National departments seem to find it easier to set things right than provinces. As at September 2012 there were still 5 363 unresolved cases, with Gauteng clocking up 2 565 and the Eastern Cape 3 123 unresolved matters as backlogs are being tackled. But national departments stepped up their game in 2012: correctional services moved from resolving just 41 percent of complaints to over 95 percent and public enterprises stood at just short of 100 percent, up from 65 percent.

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