Includes bibliographical references. / This thesis draws attention to South Africa’s shift in perspective of prostitution as a criminal offense to a human rights concern. This thesis addresses the proposed adult prostitution legal reforms in South Africa. These models are analyzed and evaluated in order to discover which model best upholds international standards of human rights. International best practices and prostituion legislation in other parts of the world are used to depict current successes and failures. However, concern has been raised if certain legal reforms could succeed in a sociocultural context such as South Africa. This thesis seeks to investigate prostitution within the sociocultural context of male power and female oppression in South Africa. Prostitution is revealed as the exploitation of women and a violation of human rights. It is concluded that South Africa’s context of pervasive violence against women is not unique, but a reflection of a global view of women. The Nordic model is the human rights model that is recommended for South Africa. This model is not only able to improve the sociocultural status of women, but also penalize the demand for female sexual labor, which is considered the primary force behind the sex industry.

Includes bibliographical references (leaves 79-89).

Includes bibliographical references. / All over the world, state police are but one actor within a hybrid policing field involved in the provision of security. Civil society can legitimately come together in either self-help schemes or by means of buying security to deal with feelings of insecurity. An area can therefore be subject to plural policing. This paper is an audit of security interventions implemented to protect learners enrolled at Westbank High School. Westbank High School is a high-risk school. Learners in schools suffer a double-blow because not only do they suffer from crime within the school walls but also outside the school walls. Two general questions emerge in this situation. The first being, what is being done by state and non-state actors about the problem of crime in and around schools? Secondly, how are school children being supported and protected against criminal activity in their respective schools?

Up until the beginning of this century climate change was mostly seen as an environmental issue, although, the issue of violent conflict has been linked to natural resources before. However, in the last decade the focus has increasingly shifted to connecting climate change with, in particular, human security. In contrast to previous debates, contemporary discussions put emphasis on the impacts that climate change has on human lives. Yet, it is not uncontroversial to what extent environmental degradation as well as carbon dioxide emission based economies play and have played an accelerating role. But even if 'climate change sceptics’ or 'climate change deniers’ question the credibility of climate change the reports by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) present a solid base for the international climate debate which is accepted and supported by the majority of academic experts. Nonetheless, there is significant ambiguity about what the negative consequences of climate change could pose on peaceful human co-existence. In 2007, specifically, it was brought to public attention that the effects of a warming climate, such as more intense storms, floods and droughts have severe impacts on the human-wellbeing, especially in more vulnerable areas of the globe. Experts even claimed that, in many parts of the world, climate change would cause dramatic impacts in the form of violent conflicts due to the decrease of drinking water, fertile soil as well as food. Entire states might be weakened and societies could collapse which might lead to severe consequences for conflict resolution institutions and mechanisms, human security as well as migration. However, findings regarding the impacts of climate change on violent conflict are highly controversial and sometimes even contradictory. One reason for that could be that the physical effects of climate change are limited to date. Furthermore, as studies from the 1990s on the consequences of environmental change have shown, it is difficult to disconnect the environmental factor from other societal and political influences that lead to conflict. This thesis explores the politically charged issue as well as academically controversial link between climate change, as one of the environmental changes, and violent conflict by providing a conceptual assessment of the two different bodies of literature, namely the literature on violent conflict and the climate change literature, before examining available literature on the connection of the two phenomena. Finally, the case study of Darfur is analysed with regards to the often misused term climate war in order to conclude that violent conflicts are caused by multiple factors which should not be oversimplified and therefore cannot be traced back to purely environmental reasons. Therefore, the central research questions addressed in this thesis are: what do scholars say about the connection between climate change and violent conflict? Can climate change and its repercussions be seen as a threat multiplier in unstable and therefore vulnerable societies? And can the Darfur conflict be described as one of the first climate wars?

No description available.

Includes bibliographical references. / The Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (Rome Statute) provides for a close relationship between the International Criminal Court (Court) and the United Nations Security Council (Security Council). This relationship is demonstrated through Security Council exercise of referrals and deferrals. This dissertation discusses first, the Security Council referrals of the situations in Darfur, Sudan and Libya. Second, the Security Council passing of resolutions 1422(2002) and 1487(2003), which deferred the Court from commencing any investigations or prosecuting of any crimes that could have arisen as a result of the United Nations peacekeeping operations. This dissertation argues that the Security Council has exercised referrals and deferrals contrary to the Rome Statute, the Charter of the United Nations (the Charter), and the Negotiated Relationship Agreement between the Court and the Security Council (Relationship Agreement) as envisaged by the drafters of the Rome Statute. It concludes by stating that, the relationship between the Court and the Security Council is at a crossroad because the latter has failed to exercise referrals and deferrals in the manner provided for in the Rome Statute and as envisioned during the drafting of the Rome Statute, thereby equating the Court to the proverbial bark of a toothless dog.

Includes abstract. / Includes bibliographical references. / Using material such as organisational reports and newspaper clippings, along with a survey of relevant literature on the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission, this thesis fills an important gap in the literature on the TRC's amnesty process by investigating the perspective and contribution of the South African human rights community on the novel form of amnesty involved in the TRC process. In so doing, the study draws on relevant comparisons with the role of the Argentine human rights movement in advocating for truth and justice for human rights atrocities following the restoration of civilian rule in Argentine 1983.

Includes bibliographical references. / The problem with the corroboration requirement in sexual offences is that it is based on an improper foundation. The proffered rationale, that most complainants lie about sexual offence allegations, cannot be verified from empirical data. Regardless of this fact, due to the rule’s existence, the standard of proof in sexual offence cases is unnecessarily raised above that which normally obtains in other criminal cases, causing convictions in sexual offences very hard to come by. The rule is found to be only premised on discrimination against women. Such being the case, the rule runs counter to the current Constitutional order which is founded on principles of equality before the law, non-discrimination and the dignity of all persons. It is also against the Constitutional commitment of offering women full and effective protection. This paper advocates that such an evidential rule is undesirable for it serves no useful purpose in the adjudication of sexual matters and that the rule is unfairly discriminatory against women and unconstitutional in the present Malawi constitutional regime. It further advocates that the rule should be abolished both by judicial pronouncement and legislatively. Since the corroboration requirement is a common law rule, lessons will be drawn from comparative common law jurisdictions which used to have the rule but have now abolished it, such as South Africa, Namibia, the State of California, Canada and England.

Includes abstract. / Includes bibliographical references. / Through use of a phenomenological design, this qualitative study investigated barriers to accessing mental health care by female refugees living in the Cape Metropole who have mental health problems as a result of exposure to trauma. A high number of female refugees in the Cape Metropole have been exposed to trauma. This study aims to contribute to the limited literature on this topic. The objectives of the study were to identify whether female refugees faced barriers to accessing mental health services in the Cape and if they did, the nature of these barriers. The findings identified that at the service-delivery level, language, under-resourced mental health services, documentation barriers and lack of awareness of refugees' rights were the biggest barriers. The main barriers in the refugee communities were cultural and religious, fear and lack of awareness and work and childcare responsibilities. The study highlights that not only is the South African government obliged under international, regional and national laws to fulfil female refugees' right to access mental health services, but it is in the state's best interests to do so.

How should the relevant facts about the Rwandan Government's construction of their narrative ofthe Rwandan genocide be established? A frequent point of emphasis by scholars is that an official narrative usually is put forward by the dominant or ruling group to serve their interests: the contents and features oftheir narrative are capable of legitimating their claims to dominance. Different groups within that society might espouse alternative narratives of events. Neither the narratives of the dominant or ruling group, nor the challenging narratives are necessarily the most widely believed or influential account of a particular set of events. The most widely believed and influential narrative is usually referred to as a "master narrative". But official and challenging narratives compete to be the "master narrative". The 'Shoah' [the Hebrew term for "catastrophe"] as the narrative of the genocide of the ]ews of Europe is widely considered to represent the definitive master narrative of genocide and perhaps the twentieth century [LaCapra 1994 and 1998, Lipstadt 1986 and Maier 2000]. The discussion contained herein requires identification of a framework of issues relevant to official narratives: the construction of such a framework will be based on an analysis of [a] narratives of genocide and [b] three of the more prominent cases of official genocide- narratives. The chosen narratives are the Holocaust or Shoah, the Armenian Genocide and the Herero Genocide. Once constructed, this framework of analysis will then be applied to the official narrative of the RPF. The research design is thus a theoretical case study of sorts, with the theory distilled from scholarly literature on [a] and [b]. The case studies have been chosen because they represent the spectrum of narratives employed in the context of genocide: the Shoah as the master narrative of genocide; the Armenian genocide as a contested genocide narrative; and the Herero genocide as a 'silenced' genocide narrative.