Africa : regional overview

Abstract

Hate speech and hate crime remain difficult issues in Southern Africa, where the legacies of colonialism and apartheid embedded concepts of racial difference and tribalism. In 2013 South Africa took steps towards identifying hate crime as a legal offence, but it remains to be seen how well this will be implemented in practice. Most other Southern African countries still lack specific hate crime legislation and only have laws addressing racially motivated crimes. San communities throughout Southern Africa face continued discrimination in education, land rights and cultural practices. In Botswana, for instance, following their eviction from their ancestral lands in the Kalahari, displaced communities struggle to access livelihoods and suffer a range of health challenges, including HIV. However, San also achieved some milestones in 2013. San representatives attended the Southern African Development Community (SADC) Civil Society Forum and raised their concerns. As a result the summit’s final communiqué contains a section on indigenous rights as well as provisions for change, including a call for support of the 2012 Gobabis Declaration of the San Peoples