The Weekly Mail this week went to Leeuwkop, a sprawling prison complex on the outskirts of Johannesburg, and ”bought” a pair of convicts for the day – for less than R3. After we had paid R 1,40 for each man, and waited for 15 minutes outside the gates of C2 block, two prisoners in green overalls were ushered out of the jail and into the back of our delivery van.
The visit confirmed reports that the system, known to inmates as ”ukuthenga amabhantinti” – the buying of bandits” is still widely practised even though the government took a decision to phase it out three years ago. It also demonstrated the South African Prison Services exercise little control over the way prisoners are treated once they leave the prison. After we arrived outside the gates of block C2 yesterday morning, we joined a queue of farmers, nursery owners and policemen who had come in vans and trucks to collect their quota of labour for the day.
The South African Police were waiting in three pick-up vans and a pantechnikon to transport a daily supply of convicts to a training college near Pretoria, where they are put to work in the gardens. Other employers included Eskom, a paving company, the Kyalami Golf Course and owners of small plots in the district. The Eskom driver left in a staff bus loaded with convicts while others collected teams of six prisoners each. Inmates of the prison say a building contractor takes the same span (team) of convicts every day and uses them as unskilled labour on his construction site.
As prison regulations prohibit the use of convicts for industrial work, they say convicts are made to wear ordinary overalls for the day. The only precondition for hiring labour from the prison is that employers must swear themselves in as temporary warders and agree to abide by regulations that prohibit the use of convicts in skilled work and prevent them from being assaulted. Our pair of inmates from Leeuwkop said C2 block hired out about 300 prisoners a day. Conditions vary from place to place but convicts are sometimes assaulted if their employers feel they are being lazy. Employers can also complain of misconduct to the warders. Prison authorities then put the offenders on a spare diet of ”watery soup” for up to 30 days in the disciplinary section of the prison known as ”kulukuthu – solitary confinement”. This form of punishment, the inmates say, acts as sufficient deterrent to laziness. It also adds a large element of compulsion to the prisons’ system of forced labour.
The International Federation of Plantation Agricultural and Allied Workers told the Weekly Mail that the system contravened the International Labour Organisation’s codes. ILO convention 29 allows convicts and parolees to work outside prison on condition that ”the said person is not placed at the disposal of private individuals, companies or associations”. This week representatives for Unifruco, the official body for the export of deciduous fruit, confirmed that use of convict labour for the cultivation of farm produce is prohibited by the General Agreement on Trade and Tarrifs (Gatt), which South Africa has signed. Unifruco PRO Fred Meintjies said that as a result his organisation had long banned the practice. ”Our members are required to sign an affidavit that they are not using it (prison labour) and if we find that they are using it we will expel them,” he added.
A number of trade unions have responded to disclosures that convicts are extensively used on farms – and some gold mines – in the eastern Transvaal by calling for a full judicial enquiry. This week the Food and Allied Workers’ Union, which organises farmworkers in the Western Cape, said it would like to see the system of convict labour halted. ”If people are to be reintegrated into society (as stated by the SA Prisons Services) then the farms are not the place. Unskilled farm work does not reintegrate people. For this to work they need to be trained with specific skills and sent out to work as apprentices for a decent wage.”
Prison regulations state that convicts may not be used for skilled work or in jobs covered by industrial council regulations. They may not be assaulted and the regulations provide advice on how they can be protected from extreme cold and treated in cases of heat ex-haustion. Prison rules also stipulate that temporary warders ”must wear shoes and socks” and can be put on parade for dress inspection before they take convicts away. But our trip to Leeuwkop indicate that prison authorities do little to monitor employers so that they can ensure regulations are adhered to.
I was sworn in as a temporary warder last week together with two members of the Sandton Fire Brigade and the owner of a smallholding. A prison officer spent some 30 minutes explaining the contents of the regulations. And we were able to take the convicts away from Leeuwkop without leaving the address of the place where the men would be working. e These reports have been put to SA Prisons Service for comment, though no response was received at the time of going to press. Their response will be published as soon as it is practicable.
This article originally appeared in the Weekly Mail.
