Tenure security of farm workers and dwellers

The report provides a brief history of farm labour in South Africa tracing its roots in slavery and colonial dispossession through to the emergence of state supported commercial agriculture and the subsequent deregulation of the agricultural sector. This is with a view to contextualising the examination of tenure security and identifying the impacts on people living and working on land owned by others. The report provides a scan of the legal reforms and measures instituted in the first decade of democracy in order to reverse the injustices of the past. It briefly examines aspects of the contemporary landscape before providing a detailed assessment of the Extension of Security of Tenure Act and its implementation and impact. This includes a focus on issues faced by farm workers to secure their rights to housing and services. The report concludes by examining what the Department of Rural Development has characterised as a “total system failure” impacting on the implementation of ESTA and identifying elements of the complex policy and practice gridlock in the farming sector which has emerged regard to the tenure, housing and access to services of farm workers.