Rights groups divided over DBE’s efforts to rid schools of pit toilets

April 4, 2025 40

Civil rights organisation, Amnesty International South Africa, has expressed disappointment over the Department of Basic Education’s continued failure to eradicate pit latrines from schools across the country.

Amnesty says its unacceptable that the department has once again missed its self-imposed deadline.

The human rights organisation is reaction to the Basic Education Minister Siviwe Gwarube’s earlier announcement that they’ve only been able to get rid of 96% of the dangerous toilets that have so far claimed the lives of at least six children, with the youngest victim being three years old.

Unecebo Mboteni tragically lost his life when he fell into a pit toilet at his crèche in Mdantsane, Eastern Cape, last year.

The provinces that remain with pit toilets are the Eastern Cape with 96, followed by KZN with 45 and Limpopo with just one.

Activists and social commentators say pit toilets are a bleak reminder of the South Africa’s dark history as they were built during the apartheid regime.

They are upset that government’s deadlines to eradicate them has been moving since 2016, when it was pushed to 2020, 2023 and March 2025.

Despite this, however, Minister Gwarube remains upbeat that they will eventually achieve their goal, saying progress has been made since her promise last year.

Amnesty International’s Genevieve Quintal, however, remains unimpressed.

She says government is violating the children’s right to safe and hygienic sanitation as per the dictates of the country’s Constitution.

“Amnesty International South Africa is calling on the DBE to provide clarity and be transparent about the actual number of schools still using pit toilets, including those not part of the SAFE initiative, and how it plans to eradicate those not part of this initiative with clear timelines. The use of plain pit toilets in schools violates a learner’s right to health, sanitation, education, dignity and in some cases, life,” charges Quintal.

Advocacy group, Section27, has also weighed in, expressing disappointment at the department failure, again, to meet its own deadline.

It is, nonetheless, encouraged that 96% of the work has been done.

The organisation and Equal Education have long been fighting for the eradication of pit toilets at schools, particularly in Limpopo, following the death of 5-year-old Michael Komape in 2014 .

Section27’s Education Attorney, Demichelle Petherbridge, says its encouraging that the minister acknowledges that the work isn’t done and more still needs to be accomplished.