Women On Farms (WOF) has accused Drakenstein Municipality of being among those with the highest farm-eviction statistics in the region.
The organisation held a picket outside the municipal offices on Thursday (26 June), calling for adequate alternative housing solutions in the event farm labourers are evicted.
WOF’s Carmen Louw said: “The municipality’s approach to providing alternative accommodation is to create more and more informal settlements.
“The one informal settlement is prone to flooding and fires. Earlier this year more than 200 shacks burnt down.
“The constitution stipulates that there is a right to adequate housing. Informal structures expose people to more structural abuse and a lot of social conditions such as crime.”
He said they are calling on the municipality to, among others, take a different approach in its spatial planning.
“This is a municipality that prioritises ‘estate living’ and all these new developments. Hence, more and more farm workers are being evicted.
“So as part of our demands we say that when it does its spatial planning the housing needs of those in informal areas should also be integrated. We need to do away with apartheid structural development and minimise the inequalities in terms of land, housing and social cohesion.”
In a statement released following the demonstration outside its offices Drakenstein Municipality said it “does not support farmworker evictions, nor does it evict farmworkers.”
“The municipality, as far as possible, intervenes and assists in negotiations to avoid farmworker evictions,” said Acting Executive Director for Community Services David Delaney.
He said councillors and officials regularly meet with farm owners in the area as well as engage with the relevant parties and the different departments within the three spheres of government.
“It is in Drakenstein Municipality’s interest to avoid farm evictions due to the cost implications for the municipality and pressures on its housing sites. However, the municipality has always taken its responsibility to provide emergency housing seriously and has always provided emergency accommodation when required.
“The standard of emergency housing in Drakenstein has also historically been above the minimum specifications in the guidelines provided by National Government.”
Delaney said alternative emergency accommodation is normally a 24 m² temporary structure with access to basic communal services.
WOF’s other demands include the provision of detailed plans, time frames and budget allocations for integrated housing developments for evicted farmworker communities. It wants the municipality to roll extensive consultative processes out to define dignified, alternative housing to create safe “slum-free” communities.
WOF also said Drakenstein must identify commercial farm land where farmers have multiple farms, unpaid municipal accounts, unused farmland for land expropriation to be used for low density housing developments for farm dwellers.
Lastly, it said the municipality must undertake farm audits to monitor access to clean running water and decent sanitation facilities, especially where lack of access to water and sanitation is used to constructively evict farm dwellers.
WOF requested a meeting with relevant municipal officials for 16 July to discuss these demands.
