KNOWLEDGE OF THE CONSTITUTION

I would like to congratulate the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister on the role it played in making sure that the children of Ekufikeni enjoy their rights like every citizen.

The community must also be commended for taking up the initiative and making sure that the children are assisted. This is what the country needs for it to move forward. But this matter also got me thinking about the parents of the children. I do not know how educated the father is but the mother is seemingly someone who is not well educated. But their education is not a justification for them to deprive their children a better life.

Most of our parents never went to school but had a vision to allow us to attend school and paid our school fees. It is even better now because parents do not pay for primary education.
In my opinion, though, the problem is lack of knowledge of the Constitution by people of this country. Whether this is fortuitous or by design, I do not know. But to me it is by design. I say so because the very fact that the institution that is constitutionally expected to capacitate the people on their rights is not funded to carry out this task.

According to the Paris Principle, our Human Rights Commission should be funded to fully exercise this function. But by the design of our government it is not, thus making people ignorant of the Constitution. Therefore, we cannot blame the Vilakatis of Ekufikeni because they were never told by anyone about the rights of their children. I am sure they have never heard of freedom of religion.

This, however, is not to fully exonerate the commission because it has also not acted in a way to help capacitate people, especially the leadership of the commission. I am yet to see a report filed by the commission with the different United Nations bodies on the violations carried out in the country and this is worrying.

Ignorance

Ignorance of the Constitution may be worse with Vilakatis but they are not the only ones. Even our parliamentarians are struggling to follow the Constitution. This can be adduced from some of the submissions they make in Parliament. Or rather they are not able to apply the provisions of the Constitution to the way we conduct our daily lives.

Whose duty is it to make sure that they are well versed with it if it is not the Human Rights Commission? Yes they are supposed to read the Constitution but the commission has a duty to educate people on their rights. Surely the commission can have funds to educate parliamentarians or combine with NGOs to educate the parliamentarians at least before they start their work.

It is embarrassing to hear our parliamentarians making submissions that are discriminatory. Discrimination is one of the behaviours that are prohibited in the Bill of Rights and parliamentarians should be fully aware of that. I was very disappointed, and I mention it again, to hear them mentioning that our female parliamentarians should cover their heads while their male counterparts are not ordered to do so.

To say people should be dressed presentably would have been good enough than to then say, because they are women, they should cover their heads. If women in Parliament are forced to do such, what should we expect from people like those at Ekufikeni? Let me mention now that I have a filial attachment with Ekufikeni.

Our Constitution, through the Bill of Rights, mentions that all children in this country should access primary education for free and the DPM has assisted the children to enjoy this right. But I have read in the newspapers that Senator Cleopas Dlamini submitted that some children in the country should now be discriminated. I do not think that a person who is in Senate and aware of the Bill of Rights would have the audacity to say such.

To say that some children should be deprived of primary education because they are born from privileged families is not the right way to go. Why should they be discriminated against over their birthright?

From my knowledge, discrimination is the treatment of an individual or a group based on their actual or perceived membership in a certain group or category in a way that is worse than the way people are treated.

So for the senator to say certain children should be denied free primary education because they are from certain families is not good. This tells me that there is a problem and some education needs to be done because clearly, people are not aware of the provisions of the Constitution.

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