The 52nd session of the Human Rights Council will take place at the Palais des Nations in Geneva, Switzerland from 27 February to 4 April 2023.
During the week of 7 to 10 March the Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, Michael Fakhri, will report on Conflict and the Right to Food. Masifundise will participate in this session and it will provide an opportunity to present its latest report, Turning the Tide towards the Realisation of Small-scale Fishing Rights: Monitoring the Implementation of the Voluntary Guidelines on Small-scale Fisheries in South Africa, which was developed in collaboration with FIAN international, as part of the Socio-economic Rights Project (SERP).
The report is the culmination of three years of Participatory Action Research and highlights that fact that despite South Africa’s progressive laws and policies that speak to the human rights of small-scale fishers, several challenges to its realisation on the ground persists.
The report also sets out how in spite of these challenges small-scale fishers and small-scale fishing communities, continue to fight back in the struggle towards the realisation of their fishing rights as human rights.
The report will be published in South Africa on 21 March, a day the country celebrates Human Rights Day.
“The vision is for this report to be used as a tool in the campaign for the human rights of small-scale fishers in South Africa, at various levels of fisheries management and governance. This report, in addition to the submission already made by Masifundise and FIAN International to the Call for Input: Violence and the Right to Food, will be influential for the visit of the Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food to South Africa scheduled to take place this year,” said Yvette Le Fleur, Junior Researcher at Masifundise.