SADC leaders urged to fix deteriorating human rights situation
Johannesburg, South Africa (PANA) - As leaders of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) prepare to meet on Monday to mark their 40th anniversary, Amnesty International is urging them to urgently take concrete measures to fix the human rights crisis in the region.
The human rights advocate in a press release on Friday said COVID-19 is still tearing through the region, exposing stark inequalities and particularly threatening marginalized and vulnerable communities, while crackdowns on peaceful dissent in countries including Zimbabwe, Madagascar and Eswatini have intensified in recent months.
“A number of countries in the SADC region are experiencing alarming human rights violations and abuses threatening peace and stability and hindering the response to COVID-19. In Zimbabwe, authorities have stepped up a crackdown on dissenting voices with state security forces unleashed on activists, human rights defenders, journalists and opposition supporters,” said Deprose Muchena, Amnesty International’s Director for East and Southern Africa.
“COVID-19 has exposed the fragilities of the regional economy. In the absence of adequate social protection millions of people employed in the informal economy and those who lost their jobs are facing starvation and destitution, and protecting their lives and other human rights must be top of the agenda at the SADC summit,” he said.
The virtual summit will be under the theme,“40 Years Building Peace and Security, Promoting Development and Resilience to face global challenges.”
Amnesty International noted that the summit takes place amid surging rates of COVID-19 infections across the region taking a huge socio-economic toll as well as on health.
Much of the region’s population lives in the margins of the mainstream economy, with no regular income nor guaranteed livelihoods.
Poor health infrastructure in countries even in larger economies such as South Africa means that the poor and marginalized are at greater risk of dying from COVID-19 related complications due to lack of access to appropriate health care and treatment.
"South Africa has more than 500,000 confirmed cases of COVID-19, and regional leaders must use the summit to ramp up their public health response strategy, by rolling out rigorous testing and strengthening case management," the press release said.
Amnesty International said at the same time the region desperately needs financial help.
A number of countries in and outside of the SADC region, including Lesotho, South Africa, Namibia, Zambia and Zimbabwe, have approached multilateral lenders, including the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, African Development Bank and other lenders for emergency financial assistance.
"Amnesty International is calling for debt cancellation for the world’s poorest countries for at least the next two years, to free up resources for countries to respond to the pandemic. This must be coupled with robust transparency and accountability mechanisms in all donor and recipient countries, to ensure that the money freed up is not lost to corruption or wasteful expenditure," the press release said.
The human rights group noted that since the outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic in the region in early March, several countries have declared states of emergency and disaster or taken exceptional measures to curb the spread of the disease.
It added that it has documented an escalation of violations and abuses of human rights across the region, including intensified crackdowns on peaceful dissent, pointing out situations in Zimbabwe, Madagascar and Eswatini.
THe press release also said the COVID-19 pandemic has also heightened the threat posed to women and girls in the region including by sexual and gender-based violence.
Confinement due to stay-at-home orders and lockdowns has left many women and girls exposed to domestic violence, sexual, economic, psychological and other forms of abuse by partners and family members, it said.
“SADC leaders have a responsibility to address the human rights crisis which is unfolding across the region, including by allowing people to freely exercise their human rights and strengthening protections for women and girls’ rights,” said Muchena.
“If they fail to take steps to protect the most vulnerable, they will be betraying the SADC’s founding principles, which obligate their governments to respect, protect, promote and fulfil the human rights of everyone,” he said.
-0- PANA MA 15Aug2020
