CUSTOM CONTESTED is a one-stop website that provides news, information and analysis on laws and policies affecting custom, “tradition” and citizenship rights, exploring what is at stake for ordinary South Africans. It provides news articles, opinion pieces and tracks laws and policies about...
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Tenure security, land rights and farm worker rights
by Centre for Law and Society in 2013
by Piet Coetzer, Leadership in 2013
South Africa's historical baggage is heavy, especially the ownership of land and related rights, which came sharply into focus in the last two weeks with the publication of an amended draft of the Expropriation Bill and a judgment by the Constitutional Court. What emerged was not only a highly...
by Ben Cousins in 2013
This article describes how rural women seek legal recognition of individual family-based rights within a group rights-based system. Ben Cousins argues that this requires an adaption of customary tenure systems to contemporary conditions, including greater accountability to the rights-holder in...
by Poul Wisborg, Ruth Hall, Shirhami Shirinda, Phillan Zamchiya in 2013
Burning fields, demonstrations and clashes between police and farm workers: in 2012, farms in South Africa’s Western Cape province witnessed a wave of anger and violence during protests against low wages and poor living conditions. Old patterns of ownership and power still produce tense human...
by SABC News in 2013
The recent farmworkers' strike in the Western Cape has highlighted low pay and unbearable working conditions as the main causes of the workers' grievances. However, some farmworkers have also revealed that land reform and redistribution are at the centre of their concerns. Former Farmworker in...