The Commission for the Promotion and Protection of the Rights of Cultural, Religious and Linguistic communities Rights Commission (CRL) responded to the xenophobic attacks that took place in South Africa and it provided solutions for the current challenges facing the country.
The purpose of the dialogue was to discuss and come up with solutions that are responsive to the xenophobic attacks. The dialogue aimed to identify the underlying causes that led to these challenges and problems.
The CRL Rights Commission seeks to address such problems effectively because they can seriously pose a threat to the values of democracy, social cohesion and human dignity.
According to the CRL Rights Commission, “A strong caution was expressed about how the recent incidents of violence, looting and crime was loosely and generally labelled. As a result, an appeal was made to all the participants to accept that based on the inputs received, that the root causes of the recent violence, looting and crime are not due to xenophobia. Therefore, participants in the attacks raised the need to address economic structure as one of the major causes.”
Inequality, lack of service delivery, high unemployment, crime, poor quality in education and access to economic wealth. However, an appeal was made to the government and its agencies by the CRL Rights Commission to develop strategies that will effectively manage South African borders and an integration policy that would manage all migrants.
The Chairperson of the CRL Rights Commission Prof Mosoma added, “the fact that it is envisaged that some of the critical issues and recommendations made at this dialogue can help to fast track and strengthen government’s service delivery and as a consequence enables the affected communities to move out of the cycle of poverty.”
