Un report reveals alarming rise in violence against land defenders in remote areas

Mary Lawlor’s visit included families affected by the expansion of the Tendele Coal Mine, 85km northwest of Richards Bay. (Image; Ed O’Donovan)

By Naledi Sikhakhane

11 Mar 2025

The report finds that states, corporations and media have failed human rights defenders faced with death, violence, criminalisation and other forms of repression, especially in rural areas.

In 2023, the NGO Global Witness reported the killings of 196 land and environmental defenders, who often worked in rural, isolated or remote areas. In the Front Line Defenders Global Analysis 2023/24, the killings of at least 300 defenders in 28 countries in 2023 were documented; almost a third of those killed were indigenous people’s rights defenders.

The United Nations Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights defenders, Mary Lawlor, is calling on governments to take urgent action by strengthening protection mechanisms outside of major cities, ensuring access to legal and financial resources, and holding perpetrators of violence accountable. In a report titled Out of Sight: Human Rights Defenders Working in Isolated, Remote, and Rural Contexts, she urges businesses to adopt zero-tolerance policies for retaliation against defenders and to respect indigenous communities’ rights to free, prior, and informed consent.

The report sheds light on the unique dangers faced by defenders operating far from urban centres. Lawlor presented it on 5 March 2025 at the 58th session of the UN Human Rights Council, where she warned of alarming gaps in protection for these human rights defenders who are disproportionately targeted by violence, criminalisation, and systemic neglect.

Mary Lawlor’s visit included families affected by the expansion of the Tendele Coal Mine, 85km northwest of Richards Bay. (Image: Ed O’Donovan)

The Special Rapporteur issued an open call for input in preparation of the present report. Altogether, 50 replies were received, including nine from governments, 33 from civil society organisations, five from individual human rights defenders and three from academic institutions. The Special Rapporteur wishes to thank all those who contributed to the present report.

Michelle Cruywagen, the just transition and coal campaign manager at environmental justice NGO groundWork, in a response to Daily Maverick said: “GroundWork and Life After Coal welcome the report of the UN Special Rapporteur Mary Lawlor, which features the threats faced by human rights defenders in remote areas. We hope that this report urges our government to act as they are constitutionally obliged to protect human rights defenders, especially those who are marginalised in rural areas.

Read more: UN Rapporteur ‘in awe’ of SA human rights defenders

“We have found that women and land activists are particularly at risk, as is highlighted by the brutal murder of activist Mam Fikile Ntshangase in October 2020 in front of her 11-year-old nephew for opposing the expansion of the Somkhele coal mine in northern KwaZulu-Natal. To date no one has been arrested for her murder and five years have passed,” said Cruywagen.

She added that they saw the continuation of intimidation, threats and violence towards human rights defenders in rural areas, and a failure of the police and government to act. Lawlor visited Ntshangase’s family and met with multiple human rights defender organisations such as Amadiba Crisis Coalition and Mfolozi Community Environmental Justice Organisation.

“We expect authorities to take more urgent action to publicly condemn the killings and to investigate and arrest the killers of human rights defenders. Furthermore, we expect our government to make laws that recognise the role that human rights defenders play and to ensure that they are protected. We are encouraged by the presentation of Mary Lawlor’s Report at the 58th Session of the Human Rights Council, and the findings of the report align to our community’s experience of our government’s failure to strengthen protection measures. The Life After Coal Defend our Defenders campaign supports communities to speak up and to hold the government accountable,” said Cruywagen.

The organisation had had multiple meetings with crime prevention authorities, government heads and human rights defenders from areas such as Mpangeni, Richards Bay, Ishowe and other rural areas to find a way forward to protect activists who faced repression that became fatal.

Among key findings the report highlighted are:

Many rural defenders face heightened risks due to weak law enforcement, lack of access to justice, and inadequate state protections.

Women and LGBTQI+ human rights defenders in these areas endure additional layers of discrimination and violence, often with no recourse.

Digital divides and restricted internet access further isolate defenders, making it difficult to report abuses or seek emergency assistance.

Corporate and government actors continue to exploit legal loopholes to suppress defenders through criminalisation and Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation (Slapps).

In South Africa a task team was appointed to work with the South African Police Service to create a plan to address the lack of crime prevention in rural areas. The aim was to improve the responses to “crime in rural areas (serious and violent crimes and stock theft) inclusive of community mobilisation and partnership as well as the use of technology; address gender-based violence and femicide in rural areas, and look at employment in rural areas, and rural and agricultural development and land reform to address quality of life and conflict in rural areas”.

This echoes some of the rapporteur’s findings. Even though she drew her report from across multiple conflict-ridden regions such as Liberia, Sudan and Gaza, she found similar challenges for activists in rural settings and recommended solutions that could be implemented across the board.

Lawlor’s report also unpacks specific challenges such as legal challenges, the criminalisation of activists, the digital divide and the lack of access to communication tools and the internet. She found that women and people in the LGBTQI+ community faced specific vulnerabilities in their activism.

“Violence against human rights defenders who oppose extractive projects on their lands is often aggravated by State authorities’ narratives that stigmatise and criminalise defenders, accusing them of being part of criminal groups. Such tactics are often used as a way to justify a military presence,” said Lawlor.

The Special Rapporteur has spoken with and met in person many human rights defenders who have been targeted in connection with their advocacy against harmful business projects, often in remote areas. She routinely hears from indigenous defenders in such contexts that free, prior and informed consent is either manipulated or absent.

Attacks

“Some of the attacks against human rights defenders are committed by agents acting for businesses, others by government authorities acting together with business enterprises,” Lawlor said.

Conflicts were often characterised by a lack of access to regions in which fighting was occurring, further isolating human rights defenders from networks of support.

“That situation is evident in the ongoing conflict in Gaza, where movement in or out of the territory is extremely difficult and internet connections are unstable. International protection mechanisms have largely been ineffective, failing to prevent the killings of multiple human rights defenders. The Special Rapporteur pays tribute to the remarkable work of the Palestinian human rights defenders, including journalists, who continue to document human rights violations and alert the world to the scale of the atrocities unfolding in the absence of any protection.” DM

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