AN education activist has petitioned South African authorities expressing concerns over the growing trend of vigilante groups such as Operation Dudula storming schools and hospitals to deny undocumented and foreign children access to basic education and health.
This is despite Pretoria making public pronouncements that their activities are illegal and criminal in terms of local and international laws.
In the petition dated September 27, Hendrick Makaneta said communities should allow undocumented children access to healthcare as diseases do not ask for passports.
“This practice is not only a violation of their fundamental human rights, but it is a reckless threat to the health and safety of all children in our schools,” he said.
“In every classroom, children share the same air, desks and learning spaces. Diseases do not ask for passports.
“A child denied treatment for a contagious illness does not remain isolated. They sit beside South African children, play with them at break time and travel with them in crowded scholar transport.”
Makaneta said by denying undocumented children healthcare, they were not protecting South African children, they were actually endangering them.
“Preventing access to treatment does not stop illness. It only delays its spread. What could have been a manageable infection becomes an outbreak. What could have been an inexpensive treatment becomes an emergency,” Makaneta said.
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“The long-term costs in lives far outweigh any short-term political gain. A child kept out of a clinic will end up in a hospital, in a classroom or worse, in a grave.”
Makaneta said the South African Constitution guaranteed the rights of all people, not just citizens, adding that the country’s public health system and education system must reflect these values, not betray them.
“We, therefore, demand that the government urgently reverses any policy or practice that denies undocumented children access to healthcare.
“No child should be punished for their nationality or the legal status of their parents.
“To protect the health of all learners and to uphold the values of our democracy, we must care for every child equally.”
The latest petition comes a few weeks after Zimbabweans in South Africa petitioned Operation Dudula, Zimbabwe’s ruling Zanu PF party and the ruling African National Congress party of South Africa raising concern over the rise in incidents of attacks on Zimbabwean.
The Zimbabwean group, Concerned Zimbabwean Citizens in the Diaspora, said the situation faced by Zimbabweans leading them to migrate to South Africa was a result of the neighbouring country’s government’s involvement in Zimbabwean affairs.
“We, the citizens of Zimbabwe, write to you not in anger, but in truth, in pain and in the spirit of justice. Since the year 2000, Zimbabweans have been leaving their homeland in large numbers. This was not by choice but by force of circumstance,” read the concerned Zimbabwean citizens’ petition.
“The formation of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) under the late Morgan Richard Tsvangirai — may his soul rest in eternal power — was met with brutal repression.
“The Mugabe regime, deputised by Emmerson Mnangagwa and Zanu PF, unleashed violence, torture, intimidation and mass killings on innocent citizens, while Sadc [Southern African Development Community] and the world watched silently.”
They said thousands were murdered in cold blood, families displaced, homes destroyed and dreams shattered, adding that Zimbabweans did not flee because they were cowards, but because their leaders declared war against them.
The Zimbabweans said they were not Dudula’s enemies, but victims of a brutal regime that Pretoria’s “silence and protection have emboldened”.
South Africa’s Health minister Aaron Motsoaledi recently warned the vigilante groups to stop blocking foreigners from accessing health services, describing their actions as illegal.
