Reverend Modise Molefe has decided to take his lone fight for environmental justice in Gauteng’s Boipatong township in the Emfuleni municipality to the United Nations following years of pleas for intervention in the sewerage crisis.
The township has been grappling with a severe and ongoing raw sewage crisis due to collapsing infrastructure, blocked pipes and unmaintained pump stations. This has caused raw waste to flood streets and spill directly into residential homes, posing severe health hazards.
Molefe takes sewage fight to UN
Molefe, the president of the Reliable Environmental Protection & Care Agency (REPCA), is petitioning the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights’ Special Procedures Branch in Geneva, Switzerland, accusing South Africa of failing to protect residents from harmful exposure to raw sewage.
The complaint, which is expected to be formally lodged on Monday, targets the Presidency and the Department of Water and Sanitation (DWS), while also accusing the SAHRC of failing to properly investigate the matter.
‘People are literally dying’
At the centre of the dispute is the alleged long-term exposure of a Boipatong family to raw sewage contamination, which the environmental activist says has affected the health of a four-year-old toddler and her 74-year-old grandmother.
He claims the child developed severe chronic asthma and her grandmother suffers from chemical burns and recurring illness directly linked to exposure to raw sewage contamination.
“People are literally dying and no one cares. When I knock on doors to plea with the state to intervene, I am instead ridiculed and given empty promises and lies. The people of Boipatong are not enjoying their lives,” Molefe lamented.
Last month, The Citizen reported that Molefe escalated the long-running sewage crisis to parliament, accusing the South African Human Rights Commission (SAHRC) of deliberately downplaying claims of national government negligence to protect senior officials, including the Presidency.
In the UN petition, 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 United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, and the United Nations resolution recognising the right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment.
The environmental activist argues that all domestic remedies have now been exhausted after multiple objections and complaints to authorities failed to produce meaningful intervention.
The Presidency, DWS and the SAHRC are yet to respond to requests for comment on the complaint.
Last month Molefe escalated the sewage crisis to the parliament’s portfolio committee on justice and constitutional development chair Xola Nqola but said he did not even get a simple acknowledgement of receipt.
“I have fulfilled all domestic statutory options, all of which have proven completely ineffective and unresponsive. Our government is uncaring, its institutions useless and our only hope now is the UN,” he said.
