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- Open air toilet in Khayelitsha
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- Cllr June Frans stands next to one of the open air toilets in Khayelitsha. Their position right next to the road is very clear.
Over the past week toilets installed by the City of Cape Town in Khayelitsha have made headlines in South Africa, and have been featured in the press in other parts of the world, since the ANC Youth League reported the City to the Human Rights Commission (HRC) for gross abuse of human rights. The complaint to the HRC is based on the City installing these toilets without walls or roofs – open air toilets – thus impugning the dignity and privacy of the residents. The City has claimed that the toilets were installed without enclosures with the agreement of the community (and ward councillor) – claiming that the community agreed to enclose their own toilets if the City built one toilet per household instead of the planned one per five households.
On Tuesday (26 January 2010) I visisted the informal settlement in Khayelitsha, accompanied by fellow ID Councillors June Frans and Cynthia Clayton. We went to speak to the residents and to inspect these toilets for ourselves. The impact of a row of toilets, outside the shacks, right along the side of the road without any enclosures was shocking. There is no way these toilets could be used, day or night, with any privacy. We spoke to some of the residents and they were completely unaware of this agreement with the City and seemed somewhat bewildered by the installation of these toilets without enclosures. Some of the residents had enclosed the toilets themselves – with corrugated iron sheets and other materials – while some were unable to afford to do so.
On Wednesday 27 January 2010 I asked that a full report on the matter be presented to the City of Cape Town’s Housing Portfolio Committee, on which I serve, at the next meeting – which is Monday 1 February 2010 – so that this decision to build these unenclosed toilets can be interogated and understood. I do not wish to prejudge the contents of that report but I have very strong reservations about the City entering into, or negotiating, an agreement like this with a poor and vulenerable community. It is, I believe, a ludicrous deal and the results we are now dealing with should have been obvious and foreseeable. It is also shocking to learn that now that a complaint has been laid with the HRC, the City has been able to offer to enclose the toilets or to provide second-hand building material to enable residents, who have not yet managed to enclose their toilets, to do so. It raises the question as to why this wasn’t offered in the first place!
