The State of the World's Human Rights; South Africa 2025

High levels of gender-based violence continued. The murder rate remained high, while the government disbanded the police’s Political Killings Task Team. Threats against and killings of human rights defenders continued with impunity. The Department of Basic Education failed in its promise to eradicate pit latrines in schools. Legal challenges to the National Health Insurance Act continued. Water outages persisted nationwide. Migrants were harassed by a xenophobic vigilante group, which blocked their access to health and education services. The court case continued against eight VIP protection unit officers accused of assault. People living in informal settlements were disproportionately affected by flooding.

Background

South Africa assumed the G20 Presidency between December 2024 and November 2025.

Diplomatic relations with the USA were tense following the US government’s misinformation campaign about a “white genocide” in South Africa and its special refugee resettlement programme for Afrikaners, as well as the USA’s imposition of targeted tariffs and non-renewal of the African Growth and Opportunity Act.

According to official unemployment statistics, 31.9% of the working-age population was unemployed, while unemployment among 15 to 24-year-olds was 58.5%.

In August, President Cyril Ramaphosa opened the National Dialogue process, envisioned as a space for South Africans to reflect on the state of the country and its future, and lay the groundwork for the next National Development Plan to address poverty and inequality. Following civil society’s concerns about the National Dialogue’s initial budget allocation of ZAR 700 million (around USD 40.8 million), its lack of transparency and potential mismanagement of funds, the government reduced the estimated budget to ZAR 485 million.

Gender-based violence

High levels of gender-based violence continued. According to the most recent available crime statistics, 12,787 sexual offences were reported, including 10,154 cases of rape, between July and September.

The issue of the forensic DNA testing backlog resurfaced in March when the police’s Forensic Science Laboratory confirmed that the backlog had exceeded 140,000 cases. This threatened the processing of and potential for prosecutions in gender-based violence cases and other cases.

In May, three people were convicted for the kidnapping and trafficking of six-year-old Joshlin Smith. Her whereabouts remained undisclosed since her disappearance in February 2024. Her mother was among those convicted.

Eight years since the murders of Popi Qwabe and Bongeka Phungula, no one was brought to justice. The inquest into their killings, established in 2023, remained stalled. Prior to the establishment of the inquest, the National Prosecuting Authority had been unable to prosecute due to insufficient evidence, and the case was moved to the Department of Justice which opened the inquest. The women were shot during a night out, and their bodies dumped on the side of a road in Johannesburg.

In February, a video was distributed on social media showing two female police officers assaulting a woman who had reported domestic violence. Later that month, the officers were arrested, appeared in court in Bloemfontein, Free State province, and were released on bail, pending trial.

Right to life and security of the person

The murder rate remained high. Police recorded 5,794 cases between July and September.

Threats to, and killings of, human rights defenders and whistle-blowers continued, as did impunity for the perpetrators. There were no further moves by the Department of Justice and Constitutional Development to strengthen legislation to protect whistle-blowers, following the call for submissions on a discussion document in 2023.

The investigation into who ordered the murder of whistle-blower Babita Deokaran continued four years after her death.

The South African Police Service (SAPS) failed to provide protection or to conduct effective and thorough investigations into the killings between 2018 and 2022 of members of Abahlali baseMjondolo, a shack dwellers movement. While eight members were killed during this period for their activism, a conviction was secured for only one of them. No public updates on investigations into the remaining seven cases were made available.

In February, Muhsin Hendricks, the first openly gay imam and an LGBTI human rights defender, was killed while on his way to officiate two marriages. In March, whistle-blower Pamela Mabini, who campaigned against gender-based violence and supported witnesses in the rape trial against televangelist Timothy Omotso, was killed outside her house. In September, Bouwer Van Niekerk, an insolvency lawyer, was killed in his office days after receiving death threats in connection with his role in an insolvency case linked to an alleged Ponzi scheme. In none of these cases were perpetrators brought to justice.

In July the KwaZulu-Natal (KZN) province police commissioner announced that there was political interference and corruption in the criminal justice system, which included law enforcement collusion with criminal syndicates; government interference in police investigations; and abuse of power by the minister of police in connection with his disbanding the Political Killings Task Team without consultation or explanation. President Ramaphosa responded by announcing the appointment of a commission of inquiry to investigate the allegations, and the minister of police’s immediate “leave of absence”.

Right to education

There was no justice for the family of three-year-old Unecebo Mboteni, more than a year after he died after falling into a pit latrine at his preschool in the Eastern Cape province. In April, the Department of Basic Education said it had eradicated 96% of pit latrines in schools that were part of its Sanitation Appropriate for Education (SAFE) initiative. According to an Education Facilities Management System report, an estimated 448 schools (only some of which were part of the SAFE initiative) still used pit latrines. However, the minister for basic education said her department would conduct a new sanitation audit.

Right to health

US cuts to foreign aid terminated funding for many organizations providing HIV services nationwide and ended significant funding for HIV and tuberculosis research in South African universities. Prior to the cuts, the US President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief had provided 18% of South Africa’s HIV services budget. Approximately 17% of people between 15 and 49 years were living with HIV in South Africa, which had the largest HIV epidemic in the world.

Several legal challenges to the National Health Insurance Act were ongoing in the Constitutional Court and elsewhere. The challenges included that the Act was unconstitutional and could further obstruct access to quality healthcare.

Right to water

Water outages continued across the country with heightened crises in the Gauteng and KZN provinces. Residents in the West Rand in Gauteng protested after going without water for more than a month. The Department of Water and Sanitation continued to lose billions of South African rands due to its poor leadership and planning, and delays in implementing projects. In its annual report released in September, the department said there was a significant and growing backlog in the maintenance and refurbishment of national water resources infrastructure. In his February State of the Nation Address, President Ramaphosa acknowledged that South Africa’s water situation had become a “crisis”.

Refugees’ and migrants’ rights

Xenophobic vigilante group Operation Dudula harassed migrants and denied them entry to hospitals and health clinics. Consequently, a one-year-old baby died after he was unable to receive treatment at the Alexandra Clinic in Johannesburg in July. Operation Dudula later warned schools not to admit undocumented foreign national children, in violation of Section 29 of the Constitution which guarantees the right to basic education for everyone. In November the South Gauteng High Court issued an interdict against Operation Dudula, prohibiting them from harassing and intimidating migrants who are accessing services.

In May the Western Cape High Court found that sections of the Refugee Act, which denied new asylum seekers access to the asylum system, were unconstitutional. The matter was in the Constitutional Court awaiting confirmation.

The government continued to pursue its White Paper on Citizenship, Immigration and Refugee Protection, which had been adopted by the cabinet in 2024. Civil society organizations raised concerns, including its negative portrayal of migration, incorrect research used to justify limits on migration, and the proposal to withdraw South Africa from the UN Refugee Convention and re-accede with reservations that would significantly reduce refugees’ constitutional rights and in turn violate international law obligations.

Unlawful use of force

Eight officers of the deputy president’s VIP Unit were acquitted by an internal SAPS disciplinary process, held in May. The officers had been filmed assaulting three members of the South African National Defence Force in 2023. They faced 12 charges in a continuing court case, including assault with intent to cause grievous bodily harm and assault by threat and obstruction to justice. Their trial date was set for March 2026.

Right to a healthy environment

KZN, the Eastern Cape and Western Cape provinces experienced extreme flooding in some areas, with hundreds of lives lost and thousands of homes destroyed.

People living in informal settlements were disproportionately affected by flooding, which was expected to increase in frequency and intensity due to climate change.

Basic services, including clean water, toilets, waste collection and electricity, remained out of reach for millions of people in informal settlements.

South Africa fell three places in the Climate Change Performance Index’s ranking of countries, to 41st place, making it a “low climate performer”. Following the withdrawal of US support in March to South Africa’s Just Energy Transition (JET) programme, the EU pledged a EUR 4.7 billion Global Gateway Investment package – a combination of grants and loans – of which EUR 4.5 billion would be allocated to JET.