Reverend Modise Molefe has a long road ahead of him as he tries to force our useless municipal structures to do something about the appalling sewage problem in Boipatong township… but we admire his determination to take the matter to the United Nations (UN).
What is most commendable about what some may label a quixotic quest is that he has done his homework.
In lodging the complaint via petition to the UN’s High Commissioner for Human Rights’ Special Procedures Branch in Geneva, Switzerland, Molefe invokes several international human rights instruments, including Article 6 and Article 7 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, Article 24 of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child and the UN resolution recognising the right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment.
The environmental activist argues that all domestic remedies have now been exhausted, as multiple objections and complaints to the authorities have failed to produce meaningful intervention. He cites the Presidency, the Department of Water and Sanitation, and the SA Human Rights Commission as all failing in their obligations to citizens.
And that brings home the reality: In failing to provide people with decent, safe living conditions, our government is guilty of human rights violations.
