21/03/2026
21 March 2026
Abahlali baseMjondolo Youth League
*We Remain Oppressed Despite Having Rights On Paper*
The Abahlali baseMjondolo Youth League raises its voice in pain, anger, and resolve. We declare that in South Africa today, the rights of the poor, including the youth, are systematically denied. We are treated with systemic contempt and economically drained. Another generation is being sacrificed while corruption and elite enrichment continue unchecked.
We refuse to be only remembered in June. One-day events do not bring change in our lives. On Human Rights Day, we call on the government to recognise youth as human beings deserving of respect and dignity, for which the youth of 1976 fought. On this day, when the Sharpeville Massacre is remembered, we remind the government that state murder did not end in 1994 but has continued with Marikana, Operation Vala Umgodi and the many people who have been killed by the police and land invasions unit during protests and evictions. Along with all of our own comrades who have been killed in the struggle for land and dignity, we also remember all other whistleblowers and activists who have given their lives, such as Fikile Ntshangase, Babita Deokaran, and many others.
We are told that we live in a constitutional democracy. Yet the right to employment is denied to millions of young people. We are educated into poverty and graduate into joblessness. Children are denied the right to education by fascist organisations like Operation Dudula and March On March, because their anger is misdirected and they are funded by those who wish to divide the poor. Their politics is anti-Pan-Africanist and turns the poor against each other instead of confronting injustice. We ask: Ubuntu benu buphi? Where is your humanity? The children of Jacinta Zuma continue to stay in school while our African children — our children — are denied access to schools by fascist mobs.
The world should be clear that we stand in solidarity with the Socio-Economic Rights Institute of South Africa — lawyers for the poor and the oppressed — the true litigators of humanity who are doing the work of God. As Cabral reminded us, “We are soldiers of humanity.”
In the midst of the crisis of mass unemployment and impoverishment, Gwede Mantashe insults young people as being lazy and not looking for jobs, while it is systemic policy failures – failures by the ANC government that are producing unemployment. This crisis is deepened by a criminal justice system that has been captured and fails to act in the interests of the people.
Many people without work and without a future try to reduce their pain with drugs and alcohol. We continue to lose young people to the streets. There is no support for the people struggling with these challenges.
When we look at parliament we only see older people. This reflects the structural exclusion of the youth from real political power. When we look at the few people who get jobs they, like the ones that get tenders, are related to high-ranking officials. High-ranking officials are in positions for which they are not qualified. This has been evident in the Madlanga Commission.
Corruption is everywhere, and activists and whistleblowers who expose it are assassinated. When activists and whistleblowers are killed, democracy itself is killed. The blood of grassroots leaders stains the promise of freedom. We must remember every fallen comrade every time an ANC leader stands up today to tell us we are free.
The right to land is denied. Land remains in the hands of a few, and it remains commodified while the poor are criminalised for occupying unused land in search of independence, shelter and access to the cities. We are evicted, harassed, and treated as criminals for demanding a place to live. Some of our comrades have paid for this struggle with their lives.
We have built alternatives — food farming cooperatives, political schools, recycling initiatives, and communes — in an effort to create dignified life from below.
The right to protest is denied through ongoing police brutality. Peaceful demonstrations are met with rubber bullets, arrests, and pure violence. We are beaten and sometimes killed for demanding our rights.
The right to political choice and freedom of association is denied when activists are assassinated for organising their communities.
Poverty has been criminalised and turned into a joke while lives are lost to violence, addiction, depression and even hunger. The ANC makes a joke of us by giving one loaf per family. Just because it is election time, we are treated and remembered as banks for votes. Every time an election is coming they come with food parcels. Through political conscientisation, people can learn to question these empty gestures and organise for real change.
Recently, we buried five young lives lost in a devastating shack fire. These deaths were not accidents; they were the result of structural abandonment. The fires continue because we continue to be denied the right to safe energy. When we organise our own access to energy we are treated as criminals. Energy poverty remains a form of violence in 2026.
The government’s continuous austerity measures are denying young people the right to decent healthcare, the right to quality education, and the right to reliable public services. Clinics are underfunded. Schools in poor communities remain overcrowded and under-resourced. Public transport is a joke. Basic services collapse while budgets are cut in the name of fiscal discipline.
Young women have to pay tax for sanitary towels. Why is nature taxed?
We continue to struggle for housing. When the government was building public housing it was poor quality, too small and often in the human dumping grounds outside the cities. Houses were often corruptly sold and allocated, often to those who are already better off. Housing allocation is shaped by party patronage, with benefits going to municipal officials, politically connected individuals, and those aligned to power, while the poor are left behind. Now the government’s housing programme has mostly collapsed.
The promise of free education remains incomplete. Many young people are burdened by education debt, and even after graduation, there are no jobs. This produces a deep sense of hopelessness among the youth. Depression and anxiety are rampant. We do not benefit from skills development programmes because they do not reach our communities.
We remain oppressed despite having rights on paper.
We are not asking for charity. We are demanding justice. Our rights must be respected.
We demand:
• Land
• Housing
• Jobs and dignified work for young people
• A guaranteed and decent income for all people without decent paying work
• Safe and affordable energy for all
• An end to political assassinations and police brutality
• Free, decolonised, and quality education
• Investment in public healthcare and public services, not austerity
• Support for democratically run community-owned urban agricultural projects
• Support for democratically run communes and cooperatives
• True respect for the poor — not lies told to us when the time comes to vote
• Skills development that reaches our communities
• Food sovereignty through community control of production
• Action against the extremely high levels of violence in our society, including gender-based violence and xenophobia
We call on young people to organise where they are, to build political schools, and to develop the strength and clarity needed to struggle for justice. Through education and collective organisation we can build real democracy, real power, and real socialism from below.
The youth of Abahlali baseMjondolo will continue to organise, mobilise, and resist. We refuse to be silenced. We refuse to be criminalised for being poor. We refuse to inherit a future of inequality and exclusion.
We remain in solidarity with the people of Palestine. We condemn the Israeli attacks on Lebanon, Syria and Iran, and the US attacks on Iran.
We condemn the attack on the Cuban people who have been denied access to oil, food, medication. We denounce the imperialist system led by Donald Trump, which uses military force and sanctions to control people and attack people’s sovereignty. In each and every country of the world the people of that country must be free to determine their future.
Let Cuba live!
Our struggle is a struggle for dignity. Our struggle is a struggle for life. Our struggle is a struggle for democratic socialism.
Young people, let us unite! We are on our own, and it is up to us whether we fulfil our mission or betray it.
Contact
Thandeka Thusini 076 647 9641
Nkululeko Ketelo 078 330 6246
