We demand clean, safe and dignified sanitation for all!

Sanitation Campaign

Part of our Local Government Programme

Our Clean and Safe Sanitation campaign began in 2009. Access to water and toilets that are healthy, dignified and safe remains a challenge for millions of people across South Africa, and especially for residents of informal settlements.

Using a toilet or fetching water exposes a person to the risk of robbery, physical or sexual assault and for women and girls, remains a dangerous, yet unavoidable daily task.

After several years of campaigning for dignified sanitation in Cape Town’s informal settlements, the SJC, represented by the Ndifuna Ukwazi Law Centre, has launched a court application to ensure that the City of Cape Town meets its obligations to provide a basic level of water and sanitation to the hundreds of thousands in Cape Town who do not have access.

The court cases is challenging the provision of temporary sanitation solutions in Cape Town’s informal settlements, seeking an order, in the form of a structural interdict, which will compel the City of Cape Town to adequately budget and plan for the provision of improved access to sanitation in the City’s informal settlements.

The case aims to affirm the equal rights to quality sanitation, and basic services in general, of Cape Town residents who reside in informal settlements.

Residents living in informal settlements in Khayelitsha and other parts of Cape Town are permanent residents of our city. The City of Cape Town needs to acknowledge this, and must plan for, and implement sanitation services accordingly, instead of claiming that their hands are tied and reverting to inadequate, temporary solutions that are more expensive than installing proper infrastructure.

Our decision to approach the courts has not been taken lightly. It comes after many years of attempted engagement with the City on this matter.