Fight poverty, not the poor: We who live in shacks are not a threat to society

Thapelo Mohapi – 12 March 2023

As people get more desperate, more hungry and more hopeless about South Africa, society is likely to become more violent. The most important way to make this society safer for us all is to restore trust in the present and hope for the future.

Everywhere in the world the poor are criminalised, and in countries like Brazil, the United States and South Africa, governed with violence. In South Africa where there is, for some good reason, deep anxiety about the levels of violence in society, the general and worsening criminalisation of the poor poses real risks to our safety…

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