Issues of coordination and integrated approach are an answer to this challenge of crime, particularly at farms.
A rural safety plan focusing on education, awareness aimed at farming community and police, compliance with laws, enhancing the police’s intelligence capacity against abuse or lawlessness as well as mobilisation of various stakeholders against any form of crime; will be rolled out next month.
This is an announcement made by the Minister of Police, Nathi Mthethwa today following a meeting with the leadership of Food & Allied Workers Union (FAWU) in Cape Town. The FAWU delegation comprised of Mr Katishi Masemola, general secretary, Mr Gafaldien Solomons, provincial educator and organizer and Mr Mlungiseleli Ndongeni, provincial secretary in Western Cape.
Key issues that were discussed centred on the plight of farm workers; from a viewpoint of safety and security, murders, labour and industrial relations and at times, lack of speedy resolve of criminal matters by police as well as sterner punishments to the perpetrators by farmers who abuse their workers. “What we derived from today’s engagement with FAWU is commitment to work with government and other stakeholders to fight crime. From the farming environment you often find two diametrically differing views but through this plan, we remain confident that will win this war on crime. We are therefore extremely happy that FAWU is now on board,” stated the Minister.
“We are confident that FAWU would continue to provide leadership on behalf of workers as we roll out this plan. There are areas where these atrocities occur and not get reported however we need to caution that there are good farmers out there as well.
"We also heard about some of the inherent challenges that an organization like FAWU would have but we want to emphasize rural safety as a whole and not being sectorial by narrowing these issues to only farm murders.”
Mr Masemola welcomed the Minister’s outline and further assured him of FAWU’s uncompromising commitment to curbing these crimes. “We believe that the harmonious relations between farmers and farm workers should be on the agenda of all of us in order to deal a blow to this scourge of crime. Bad treatment of farm workers goes beyond labour or industrial issues which government must look at.”
According to FAWU there are about three million farm dwellers, about 450 000 are permanently employed at various farms nationally. “About 420 000 are employed on seasonal basis and within this figure, there are foreign nationals. It needs to be noted that this is a difficult terrain to unionise because at times, access to farms is also a challenge,” he added.
FAWU appealed to the ministry for more convictions on farm murders that are reported to police. “We would like to see a more stringent implementation and harsher punishment of these crimes. We also do recognise that a lot of good work has been done by police in some cases, particularly in the North West province, where we have witnessed the convictions of perpetrators of these crimes.”
While at times government has no control in terms of working conditions and agreements privately entered into between the farmers and these vulnerable workers, it is an area that farmers themselves need to seriously address. If by any chance a murder has been committed on these farms, police question each and every person in the vicinity of the murder scene. It is through such investigations and our docket analysis that we discover many of these foreigners who have been working on these farms for many years, without proper documentations. “That is precisely why the practice by some farmers, not all of them, of using illegal labourers coming from neighbouring countries as a means of averting compliance with labour laws and responsibilities needs to be addressed. Not only does this practice make it difficult to track and trace perpetrators but also in some instances the practice could be considered human trafficking,” highlighted Minister Mthethwa.
Through our engagements so far with the various stakeholders, as a ministry we now have a broader picture of the extent of the challenge we are faced with in this environment. Issues of coordination, communication and integrated approach are an answer to this challenge of crime, particularly at farms. The government will not, by itself, address the crime problem; members of society are expected to form part in the efforts to address crime and corruption, by participating in community policing forums and more directly by reporting crime and corruption where they encounter such.
For enquiries, please contact:
Zweli Mnisi, Ministerial Spokesperson
Cell: 082 045 4024
Issued by: Ministry of Police
22 April 2010
