Gate 7 residents demand basic rights

• Gate 7 residents organised a protest for water, power, food

• Landowners and government have not taken responsibility

• Residents are not allowed to grow community gardens on land

  
  

Gate 7 Residents will be closing one of the busiest roads in the Maitland/Kensington area in order to have their basic human rights recognised.

They want to shut down a section of the Voortrekker Road. The Committee of the Gate 7 Informal Settlement has for a long time been knocking on government, NGO and the private sector's office doors seeking recognition of basic needs - access to water and toilets. 

Water, sanitation, and food are fundamental human rights that are not only enshrined in Chapter 2 of the Bill of Rights in the South African Constitution, but also universally recognised. 

Gate 7 is named this way because the informal settlement is directly opposite one of the gates entering the Maitland graveyard across Voortrekker Road. Gate 7 comprises residents of an informal settlement located opposite the Maitland cemetery in Kensington.

The Gate 7 Informal Settlement community meeting took place at Wingfield 3, Voortrekker Road Informal Settlement (VRIS) in Kensington, Cape Town on Wednesday, September 2022. The meeting was about living without basic services and how they are being forgotten and ignored by the Ward Councillor, the City of Cape Town (CCT) and the National government.

The Gate 7 Community have been sent from pillar to post as they attempted to address their concerns. The state Ward Councillor is saying that she can’t do anything because the owners of the land are not communicating directly and providing answers to their concerns raised. However, they have allegedly told media outlets that the land owners are against basic service provision and wanted the residents removed, respectively. 

It is widely known that irrespective of whether the land is privately owned or illegally occupied – water and sanitation must be provided. 

NCC has interpreted this lack of action and resolution as  the City of Cape Town (CCT) government being at war against the poor communities in their governance. 

Whenever the women at Gate 7 Informal Settlement started to plough the land to feed their families. Within minutes the law enforcement and its notorious anti-land inversion unit pull up to stop the women from growing food – threatening them with arrest and the methods they use brings back the apartheid heavy memories – in real life. 

Women of Gate 7 Informal Settlement decided to plough unused land next to their community to fight hunger, poverty, and unemployment at Wingfield 3 (Gate 7), Voortrekker Road Informal Settlement (VRIS) on Wednesday, July 20, 2022. But this honest and human dream with possibilities of weathering away hunger and starvation never saw the light under the sun. As law enforcement and its notorious anti-land inversion unit, are indefinitely lurking and brusquely pestering these life-loving women – threatening to arrest them.

Women of Gate 7 Informal Settlement decided to plough unused land next to their community to fight hunger, poverty, and unemployment at Wingfield 3 (Gate 7), Voortrekker Road Informal Settlement (VRIS) on Wednesday, July 20, 2022. But this honest and human dream with possibilities of weathering away hunger and starvation never saw the light under the sun. As law enforcement and its notorious anti-land inversion unit, are indefinitely lurking and brusquely pestering these life-loving women – threatening to arrest them.