Fighting for Human Right to Water in South Africa

Fighting for Human Right to Water in South Africa Narrator: How far is meeting the basic need for water, a basic human right. In some urban areas of South Africa, being poor can literally mean being cutoff from a lifeline supply of water, people are coming to see this as a denial of the most basic human right, the right to life. This is the frontline of the unreported war over water, security guards and armed police turn up to cutoff residence that can't pay. The residences accuse them of being heavy handed. Jooma Moola: We are getting hurt. We don’t know why. We are not criminals. Why must the protection services come with guns like they're coming for a war here? Yeah, you look like criminals. Do you look like criminals? I don’t think so. We are humans. We live here. We are not enemies. There’s no respect about our incomes. These are flats, the low-income people. Narrator: Chatsworth is a township outside Durban housing over 300,000 people. The industries this community used to depend on closed down, so people are now finding almost impossible to get work. They're also coming into conflict with the authorities over their right of access to water. Christina Manqele is a single mother struggling to bring up her own four children plus three others in her care, the tiny two-room flat. After 12 years of service for the same employer, Christina found herself without a job and seriously ill needing major surgery. She began to fall behind in her water, electricity and rent payments to the point where she now owes the council roughly US$2,000.00. In January 2000, the water was cutoff. Christina Manqele: That man came to close the water. I haven’t got water. After that, I haven’t got food too and then I'm thinking one way to sell my body. I'm thinking food again. I can't go there to prostitute myself; I’m old. All night I can't sleep and my blood pressure is high. I'm thinking for the people’s life, I see it, people now, -- she got water, she got food, what about me? Why did God punish me? I'm asking all these questions now. What's wrong now? What am I doing? Narrator: Having tested the generosity of her poverty-stricken neighbors, Christina resorted to using water from a nearby polluted stream. An independent analysis found this water contains high counts of bacterial from untreated sewage. It cause waterborne diseases such as cholera. Christina Manqele: I'm thinking the whole night what I must do if my neighbor won’t give a bucket of water and then I wake up earl in the morning and I found this place now -- I'm crying. Early in the morning, I saw this place, I'm pushing myself there. Push myself of cutting all these things now and then I make a place now to come here to pick up this water here. I need to bath the children and washing and things. Narrator: In a unique piece of legislation, South Africa celebrated new Water Act gives each household the right by law to basic allowance of 6,000 liters of free water per month. In view of this, the community rallied around to help Christina to make an urgent application to the high court to get her water reconnected. But it wasn’t until three months later that she finally got to argue the case in court. In the meantime, she still has no water. In desperation, she decided to reconnect her own water despite the act the authority say this is against the law. Christina Manqele: That’s why I go back there to open the water because I need the water because I'm scared for the cholera and then I need the water because of my condition. I need to drink water all the time because like a drip, I haven’t got a spleen now. I'm worried for the children, the suffering of the children, that’s why if I never do that thing, I’d die. I can't stay without water. Narrator: Partly as a result of having reconnected her own water illegally, Christina lost her case. Today, she is still forced to use illegal water she struggles to payoff her bill. As more and more household have their water cutoff, the community is now taking the law into their own hands. They’ve become experts reconnecting water. Brandon Pillay: What happens is, inside of this piping as we’re going to open it now is we’re going to undo it. There’s a copper disc that is placed inside of this pipe and that actually shuts off the water. So, what we do is we just try to reopen up this pipe and on opening this pipe, we just remove the disc and then we have water. Okay and this is the copper disc and we have water already. So, we just put the pipe back in and then open up the main and the water comes. Cutting off somebody’s water is totally inhumane and it is definitely against the constitutional right to basic services. I mean people can't afford to pay and you can't force them to pay. And so, people are forced to reconnect illegally and are forced to actually go to bed knowing that they use illegal electricity and clean water. It is something that they have to do because they have children and this is a basic necessity for the people in this community. And that’s basically it, we have water again. Orlean Naidoo: Out of desperation, people are reconnecting their water. The council can call them thieves but obviously, people have become so desperate that they can't do without water. The story of free water is now going around for about six months now but people still don’t have water. The water is cutoff. So, there is no free water for the poor. The rule is that you payoff your arrears before you get water. So, what kind of free water service is that? When people can't afford to pay their daily bill, how are they going to payoff the arrears to get the free water? So, that is just a false hope for people. Narrator: So, what value is the law that guarantees a right to water but only of the cost of fully recovered. Ronnie Kasrils: There must be payment for municipal services. If there isn’t then how can the municipality function? It can't at all but the municipality must follow through my regulations and in terms of our Water Act, they’ve got to give you notice to community, they’ve got to do everything possible to ensure that they are collecting the rights and they have a mandatory right if they cutoff water to ensure that that community has certain degree of excess even if its by installing standpipes in the streets. Narrator: But the people here claim that they have been giving no warning or basic access and they're fined every time they reconnect themselves illegally. Male: As a community, we have rallied together and now said that we would reconnect the water every time that they disconnect. So, it means that every time we reconnect, they also charge us a fee for illegally reconnecting it. So, it means that on every month, I think on a monthly basis and sometimes maybe twice a month, they would come to check if we’re still using illegal water, they’ll cut you off and then you reconnect and they cut off and you reconnect.