Human rights violations continue to be a major issue in SA

The Human Rights Commission experienced a 13% increase in complaints in the 2015/2016 financial year.

The commission received 9‚238 complaints in 2015/2016‚ up from 8‚179 the previous year.

The top five human rights complaints in the year under review were related to:

- equality (749)

- labour practices (440)

- lack of access to healthcare‚ water‚ food and social security (428)

- rights relating to arrest and detention (409)

- administrative action (379)

"Alleged infringements of the right to equality comprised an overwhelming majority of the complaints received by the Commission‚" the commission said in its 2015/15 report.

"Alleged discrimination on the basis of race‚ disability and ethnic or social origin constitute the most common grounds of unfair discrimination. For example‚ in the 2015/2016 financial year‚ the Commission received a total of 749 equality related complaints‚ 505 of which were on the basis of race."

Most of the complaints (1‚110) stemmed from Gauteng‚ followed by the Western Cape (670) and KwaZulu-Natal (581).

"Since 2012‚ these three provinces have constantly received the highest number of complaints of all nine provinces. One noticeable change in the number of complaints received by the commission in 2015/2016 is a marked increase in the number of complaints recorded by the North West provincial office‚" the commission said in a statement.

Amnesty International last year said there were still ongoing cases of xenophobia‚ police brutality and political violence‚ despite a decrease in human rights violations in 2016‚ as poverty‚ unemployment and inequality drove more people onto the streets.