Meeting obligations but failing hopes? An investigation into South Africa’s obligation to realise the Human right to sanitation in Rural schools

Abstract

In South Africa, notwithstanding 25 years into democracy, the constitutional commitment to socio-economic transformation of post-apartheid South Africa remains unfulfilled and unrealized by the vast majority of its people. The quality of education and access to adequate sanitation in South Africa are issues not exempt from the injustices of apartheid and its consequences of entrenched inequalities and differentiated access to socio-economic rights and privileges. Rural schools or townships have been characterized by unreliable access to water and unsafe pit latrines, or children practising open defecation. And tragically, there have been a series of loss of life due to children drowning in open pit toilets on school property.