As World Food Day Approaches, One In Four South Africans Are Hungry

By Daniel McLaren

October 16 is World Food Day. As the 20th World Food Day since the establishment of our democracy dawns on South Africa, a grim shadow of hunger and malnutrition hangs over the gains of the democratic era.

Section 27 of the South African Constitution guarantees the right to have access to sufficient food to all people in our country. This and other socio-economic rights were enshrined in the Bill of Rights because their fulfilment was recognised as integral to the Constitution’s transformative purpose of ‘healing the divisions of the past’ and ‘freeing the potential of each person’.

Yet a growing body of research on access to sufficient and nutritious food shows that this most basic of rights remains far from being fulfilled for millions of South Africans.

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