- Amnesty International South Africa has called on Basic Education Minister Angie Motshekga to eradicate pit toilets in schools.
- The call comes after the body of a four-year-old girl was found in a pit toilet at an Eastern Cape school.
- According to the humanitarian organisation, the department is violating its obligations.
Describing it as a "life and death issue", humanitarian organisation Amnesty International South Africa has urged the basic education department to honour its commitment to eradicate pit toilets at public schools.
In an open letter to Basic Education Minister Angie Motshekga over the weekend, it asked for a transparent and accurate update on the progress made so far.
"The end of the financial year has come and gone, minister, and there is only silence from you and your department. And then, another child's body was found in a pit toilet at a school," the organisation said in the letter.
Last week, the body of a four-year-old girl was found in a pit toilet at a Glen Grey primary school in the Eastern Cape.
The death was not due to a lack of sanitation infrastructure at the school, department spokesperson Elijah Mhlanga previously told News24. Instead, he said, the school had upgraded its ablution facilities in 2018.
Eastern Cape Education MEC Fundile Gade visited the school on Friday in an attempt to establish the facts.
The provincial education department is yet to comment on the matter, despite numerous requests for comment from News24.
Amnesty International said the department was violating "its domestic and international legal obligations".
The organisation said there was no readily available information about the condition of infrastructure and sanitation facilities at each of the 22 945 public schools in South Africa.
It called on Motshekga to make the 2022 National Education Infrastructure Management System report available with a breakdown of public schools that have pit toilets in each province, adding:
Mhlanga said the department did not respond to open letters addressed to Motshekga.
He added that Motshekga would hold a media briefing to "outline the position of the department". The date of this briefing had not been disclosed at the time of publication.
In 2013, the Department of Basic Education adopted the Minimum Uniform Norms and Standards for Public School Infrastructure, which banned pit toilets at schools and created a legal responsibility for the department and provincial departments to eradicate them at schools.
However, based on statistics from the Department of Basic Education that were released in the 2021 National Education Infrastructure Management System report, more than 5 100 schools still have pit toilets.
Mhlanga previously told News24 that the department had rolled out almost 2 500 infrastructure development projects.