Global Forum on Food Security and Nutrition (FSN Forum)

This policy aims to provide redress and recognition to the rights of Small Scale fisher communities in South Africa previously marginalised and discriminated against in terms of racially exclusionary laws and policies, individualised permit-based systems of resource allocation and insensitive impositions of conservation-driven regulation. In line with the broader agenda of the transformation of the fishing sector, this policy provides the framewor for the promotion of the rights of these fishers in order to fulfil the constitutional promise of substantive equality. Indeed, in terms of our Constitution, the State is committed to respecting, protecting, promoting and fulfilling the rights of Small Scale fishers in South Africa.

In so doing, this policy discharges the State’s obligation in terms of Article 1 of the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights to ‘adopt legislative and other measures’ to give effect to the rights enshrined in the Charter. In particular, this policy gives effect to the protection of peoples’ rights to “pursue their economic and social development according to the policy they have freely chosen” and to “freely dispose of their wealth and natural resources”.