National Assembly:   21st October 2009

The 21st day of October as Africa Human Rights Day is an important date in the promotion and protection of human rights in Africa.

On this particular day we remember the year 1986 when the African Charter on Human and People's Rights came into effect.

The charter is more than a statement of rights. It is a signpost for what Africa aspires towards. It entrenches the right to life, liberty, protection from slavery and degrading punishment, the right to trial by impartial courts, freedom of conscience, the right to receive information and the right to participate freely in the government.

In our view as the IFP the charter remains a leading document which guarantees virtues of Ubuntu, solidarity, justice, freedom, prosperity and peace in Africa. The challenge is always to ensure that the commitments on paper are matched in practice.

The premise of this input is to say there are more debilitating challenges rather than success stories. Africa remains poverty stricken and beset with diseases in spite of the hot air coming from African leaders and G8 promising poverty reduction.

Millions of Africans live as refugees or internally displaced persons, often without the bare necessities of life, and without hope. It's impossible to accurately quantify routine patterns of abuse. All this happens despite African Union member states having ratified the charter.

The recent tragic outbreak of xenophobic killings in our soil and the continued ill-treatment of African foreigners remain a mammoth challenge for the South African government in this regard.

The respect for human rights goes deeper than free and fair elections but is directly linked to the question of good governance. Human rights culture cannot flourish in a continent that is beleaguered by improper governance, corruption and lack of service delivery.

More importantly if Africa is to succeed, the attitude towards corruption has to be changed-stripped from partisan politics and presented to society not only as a moral illness but as an infringement of the right to development of the African people.

We have fought very hard to free Africa from colonial oppression and particularly South Africa from racial oppression. We now need to wage an even greater struggle to free our continent from mal-administration and human rights abuses.

We are therefore calling on all civil societies and activists across Africa including those who are raising their voices, whether in calls for a new constitution for Zimbabwe, for a firmer response to HIV/Aids or service delivery in South Africa or violation of human rights in Kenya - to commemorate and celebrate Human Rights Day with honour and dignity.

To conclude the Africa Human Rights Day debate, we are obliged to call on our government not only to lead the campaign for good governance in Africa but to lead by example in providing basic services such as water, sanitation, housing and electricity to our people so as to achieve the Millennium Development Goals.

I thank you.