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This week — Cancer Alliance heads to high court, seminar on land redistribution and Joburg Crisis Alliance protest

This week — Cancer Alliance heads to high court, seminar on land redistribution and Joburg Crisis Alliance protest
Cancer patients and activists during a march to the Gauteng Department of Health on 30 April 2024 in Johannesburg, South Africa. (Photo: OJ Koloti/Gallo Images)
Takudzwa Pongweni
By Takudzwa Pongweni
22 Jul 2024
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The 25th International Aids Conference takes place in Munich, Germany, the Gauteng Division of the High Court in Johannesburg will hear the court application filed by the Cancer Alliance against the Gauteng Department of Health and Joburg Crisis Alliance will protest against poor and absent leadership.

On Monday, 22 July at 11am the Coalition for Children Affected by Aids will host a satellite event at the 25th International Aids Conference,taking place in Munich, Germany, from 22 to 26 July, 2024.

The event is titled “Fixing your finances – Improving resourcing to end Aids in children” and co-chairpersons will be Corinna Csaky from the Coalition for Children Affected by Aids, UK, and Shaffiq Essajee from Unicef, US.

“This satellite will preview new cutting-edge evidence on financing for children and adolescents: what is being spent by governments, donors and private philanthropists, where, on what kinds of interventions, what the gaps are and how to secure the greatest return on investment. This satellite kicks off a series of discussions throughout the conference on how different actors can use this data to end Aids in children by 2030,” reads the event description. 

Register here



Also on Monday, at 10am, Lawyers for Human Rights (LHR) will represent the Centre for Human Rights (CHR) and the Psychological Society of South Africa (PsySSA) as joint friends of the court in the matter of The Embrace Project and Others v Minister of Justice and Correctional Services and Others (48656/22).  The friends of the court seek to ensure that the Court understands how the trauma of sexual assault affects survivors’ expression of consent. This will take place in the Pretoria High Court.

“CHR and PsySSA have intervened in the matter challenging the constitutionality of the Criminal Law (Sexual Offences and Related Matters) Act 32 of 2007 with respect to its definition of consent. The act establishes a subjective standard for consent, allowing perpetrators of sexual assault to be acquitted based on a belief that there was consent, whether or not it was reasonable. The defence of mistaken belief in consent thus prevents survivors from holding perpetrators accountable where they cannot prove a subjective intent to assault,” read the media statement. 

For further information, please contact Kayan Leung, Senior Attorney: Strategic Litigation Programme, at [email protected]

Read more: Twice-yearly HIV prevention shot succeeds in pivotal trial, but questions loom over future access

Gauteng Department of Health protest Cancer patients and activists during a march to the Gauteng Department of Health on 30 April 2024 in Johannesburg, South Africa. (Photo: OJ Koloti/Gallo Images)



On Tuesday, 23 July, the Gauteng Division of the High Court in Johannesburg will hear the court application filed by the Cancer Alliance against the Gauteng Department of Health after the department failed to spend hundreds of millions of rand allocated to it for the treatment of cancer patients.

Cancer Alliance, represented by SECTION27, has filed an application against the MEC for Health in Gauteng, the Gauteng Department of Health and nine others. Despite being allocated R784-million in 2023, specifically for addressing the backlog in radiation oncology and surgery in the province, the department has made no meaningful progress in providing radiation oncology treatment to cancer patients on the backlog list,” read the media statement.

Also on Tuesday, at 3pm, Amnesty South Africa will host a discussion unpacking the importance of the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights.

Speakers include Japhet Biegon from Amnesty International, Meredith Amia-Lwanga from the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights, Zainab Olaitan from the Centre for Human Rights and Sophia Ebby from the African Court Coalition.

Live streamed on Amnesty International Africa’s Facebook page, AmnestySAfrica on X  and  CentreHumanRights and AfricanCourtCoalition on YouTube 

Thursday 25 July is World Drowning Prevention Day. Drowning is a leading cause of accidental death globally.

Every year, an estimated 236,000 people drown, making drowning a major public health problem worldwide. Drowning is one of the leading causes of death for children and young people aged 1-24 years. Drowning is the third leading cause of unintentional injury death, accounting for 7% of all injury-related deaths. The global burden of death from drowning is felt in all economies and regions, however. 



Also on Thursday, at 6pm,  the Networking HIV & Aids Community of Southern Africa (Nacosa) will host a webinar on the mental health consequences of gender-based violence (GBV) and the stigma associated with it.

Dr Memory Munodawafa will be the presenter during the webinar, which outcomes include enhancing understanding of stigma and how it relates to mental health, know how mental health has been viewed over the centuries, and learning about some evidence-based strategies that can be used to reduce stigma, and the provision of mental care for survivors of GBV.

Register here



On Friday, 26 July at 1pm, the Southern Centre for Inequality Studies will host a seminar titled “Sweetening the Deal: The Political Economy of Land Redistribution in South Africa’s Sugar Sector”.

“Under what conditions do land transfers occur under land reform? Theories of land redistribution focus on demand-side explanations for land transfers where the state allocates land in exchange for support from voters or rural elites. In this article, I argue that land transfers under market land redistribution are driven by supply-side characteristics of landholders. Using the case of South Africa’s sugar sector, I show that landholders chose to sell their land via redistribution when they had the economic incentive to preserve existing state-support frameworks and had collective capacity from centralised institutions. To understand when and why land redistribution occurs, one must pay attention to the landholders’ relationship to the state and their internal sectoral organisation. In some cases, landholders may have an incentive to redistribute their land,” reads the event poster.

Alex Dyzenhaus is a social sciences and humanities research council postdoctoral fellow in political science at the University of Toronto, and a fellow in democracy and development at the Mandela School at the University of Cape Town. Dyzenhaus’s research focuses on the political economy of land reform in South Africa and Kenya. 

Register here

For enquiries contact: [email protected]



On Saturday, 27 July, at 10am, the Joburg Crisis Alliance will protest against poor and absent leadership, failure to engage citizens on the R230 electricity surcharge, breakdown in service delivery, frequent water outages and poor infrastructure maintenance

This will take place at the Joburg Metro Centre, 158 Civic Boulevard, Braamfentein, Corner De Korte Street and Civic Blvd.

Sunday 28 July is World Hepatitis Day


The United Nations says the day is an “opportunity to step up national and international efforts on hepatitis, (viral hepatitis is the inflammation and damage of liver cells due to infection), encourage actions and engagement by individuals, partners and the public and highlight the need for a greater global response as outlined in the WHO’s Global hepatitis report of 2017.

The date of 28 July was chosen because it is the birthday of Nobel-prize-winning scientist Dr Baruch Blumberg, who discovered hepatitis B virus (HBV) and developed a diagnostic test and vaccine for the virus. DM

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