Speaker, the ANC is not surprised by the DA's attack on the internationally respected Human Rights Watch for its condemning report on the appalling abuses suffered by farmworkers in the Western Cape. Ten days later, a similar independent report in the Black Association for the Agricultural Sector on 65 farms in the Western Cape also came to the same conclusions.
By denying the outcomes of these reports and calling for more evidence, the DA demonstrates that it is not in touch with the number of farmers sentenced in courts for human rights abuses. Caroline and James Swartz were evicted and retrenched without compensation from the farm that they were working on and dumped in the informal settlement of Nova in Rawsonville, where many farmworkers end up after they are told that they are too old or too ill to work. The informal settlement has no electricity or toilets and there are currently more that 70 families of aged farmworkers.
The ANC has repeatedly raised the plight of the vulnerable and poor who are prone to abuse and exploitation and are restricted from enjoying their human rights as enshrined in our Constitution.
This clearly demonstrates that the DA is a party that represents the interests of the rich minority in the Western Cape. The ANC, therefore, reiterates its call upon the DA to listen to the plight of the abused farmworkers. I thank you. [Applause.]