Statistics South Africa’s (Stats SA) latest quarterly labour-force survey, released in November,1 did not make for good reading. South Africa’s unemployment rate is now at a world record high of 34.9% – that is about 14.3 million of the working-age population. If the expanded definition of unemployment is used (this includes discouraged jobseekers) the rate […]
More than month after the official results of the 2021 Local Government Elections were released, the mayoral committees of at least three major cities had not been finalised. Johannesburg, Tshwane and Ekurhuleni were all ‘won’ by the Democratic Alliance, and that party’s nominees duly took up the two most important roles, mayor and speaker, in […]
Children have become increasingly vulnerable to all kinds of abuse and neglect during the lockdown, and what little oversight there was in terms of school and ECD centres has been interrupted. It is an environment where it is easy for children to go missing, with ideal opportunities for trafficking. Furthermore, the lockdown has seen an […]
Every year since 2000, the US State Department has issued a comprehensive analysis of the scourge of human trafficking and the attempts of various countries to combat it. The report seeks to “improve our collective efforts to comprehensively address human trafficking”. Each year the report assigns a tier ranking to various countries based on their […]
“The tragedy of our country is that it is replete with people who have the knowledge and commitment to make our towns, cities and society work. The problem is that they are mostly not to be found within the ANC and so we continue sabotaging ourselves with a series of own goals.”1BP 535 Cadre Deployment […]
In many ways the needs of children have been overlooked during the pandemic. It is important to be mindful that children have had interrupted schooling; they have lost opportunities to play with friends; and have spent extended periods of time at home, often in difficult circumstances where they may have experienced financial hardship and hunger. […]
There is sufficient basis in climate science base and the supporting evidence to show that global surface and atmospheric temperatures continue to rise as a result of further warming. Although natural drivers and internal climate variability could likely have an influence over the changes observed in global temperatures, these are not enough to explain the […]
The Roman Catholic Church traditionally observes the last Sunday in September as the World Day of Migrants and Refugees; 2021 marks the 107th year of this observance. It is on a different date from the United Nations Day for Refugees, which is in June, and it also parts company with its secular equivalent by deliberately […]
The sudden advent of COVID-19 on our shores and the realization that it was a highly infectious and potentially life-threatening virus led to the declaration of a state of disaster. The regulations thereof resulted in the imposition of the harsh Level 5 Lockdown in March last year, which required that everybody be confined to their […]
In South Africa, August is observed as Women’s Month. The annual commemoration is inspired by the march in 1956 of 20 000 women, to the Union Buildings, the seat of government in Pretoria, to hand over a petition of many thousands of signatures protesting the imposition of the hated ‘pass books’ on women. It is […]
