The South African Human Rights Commission has said it had seen a 13% increase in complaints, with equality being the most infringed right.

As the nation commemorated Human Rights Day on Sunday, the commission reminded the nation of the Sharpeville massacre, during which 69 protesters were shot dead by apartheid police in 1960.

SAHRC commissioner Andre Gaum said the principle of unity in diversity was not alive and well as it should be.

He added matters pertaining to equality, just administrative action, as well as socio-economic human rights continued to top the list of complaints.

However, he acknowledged many positive strides have been made over the past 26 years of democracy.

SAHRC CEO Tseliso Thipinyane sheds more time on this.

    much of our history and much of our country today is still shaped by discrimination, largely based on race and also gender and class. That's why the founding values of our Constitution talk about the issues of human rights, Section 9.
    Tseliso Thipinyane, CEO - South African Human Rights Commission

    The establishment of bodies like the Human Rights Commission is to try and tackle these issues, 25 years later the problems continue because inequality manifests itself in many ways. Issues of high unemployment rate on a racial base, poverty levels on a racial base, violence against women and children.
    Tseliso Thipinyane, CEO - South African Human Rights Commission

    It is going to be a continuing problem in this country which I think we could have done better (to tackle) but we can still do better. We still see a lot of challenges with regard to affirmative action in the workplace. Last year for example, (we found that) 60% of specialists are still white males.
    Tseliso Thipinyane, CEO - South African Human Rights Commission

    Because of the history of our country, we still have massive problems of unfair discrimination. Racial slurs are one example but there are many other examples. Unfair discrimination manifests itself in structural devices.
    Tseliso Thipinyane, CEO - South African Human Rights Commission

    We've seen last year with Covid-91 that many poor learners could not access the internet. Basically the rich, mainly white, are the ones who get an education, and the poor, who are mainly black, could not get an education. The same thing applies in the health system.
    Tseliso Thipinyane, CEO - South African Human Rights Commission

    We still have a problem of job reservations, the building of schools. Our government has not done enough in the past 25 years to address some of these structural inequalities which still persist. We as the Human Rights Commission are obliged to raise these issues.
    Tseliso Thipinyane, CEO - South African Human Rights Commission

    But we are just a watchdog, the main body here is government itself. The people of this country who keep voting for the government must also do their work in holding the government to account.
    Tseliso Thipinyane, CEO - South African Human Rights Commission

Source: EWN