Publications

A Civil Society Assessment
of South Africa’s 2026 Gender
Budget Statement in the Face
of Climate Shocks

This report assesses South Africa’s 2026 Gender Budget Statement as an important but incomplete step in rebuilding gender responsive budgeting within the national budget process. It argues
that meaningful Gender-Responsive Budgeting must go beyond identifying women as beneficiaries of existing programmes. It must assess whether the full fiscal framework, including revenue, expenditure, borrowing, debt-service costs, fiscal consolidation
and implementation, is advancing gender equality, realising socioeconomic rights and responding to the lived realities of women and girls.

South Africa’s Health Budget 2025/2026: Gender and Climate Responsivenes

Women are the majority of people who rely on public healthcare and they are also the ones who carry the responsibility of care in their homes and communities. Furthermore, poverty in South Africa is gendered, with women, particularly in female-headed households, more likely to experience poverty and to rely on public services. In this report, we focus on lower-income women not because they are the only ones affected, but because they are at the centre of how health systems and households respond to disinvestment in the system.

Protecting the Future Today: The Need For an Efficient National Child Protection
Register to Curb Violence Against Children

This report focuses on the NCPR as a tool for protecting children from violence in schools. It provides an overview of the legal protections afforded to children, sets out the features of the NCPR, and explores the effectiveness of the NCPR safeguards by reviewing how they are implemented. The report proposes additional measures that should be taken to strengthen the implementation of the NCPR.

Barriers to Abortion Services in the Eastern Cape and Limpopo: 2026 Report

SECTION27 and the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) launched a new report exposing widespread failures in access to abortion services in the Eastern Cape and Limpopo. The report, Barriers to Abortion Services in the Eastern Cape and Limpopo: 2026, documents how systemic failures in the public healthcare system are denying women and girls access to safe and lawful abortion services, particularly in poor and rural communities. 

A Practitioner’s Guide on Constitutional Remedies

A Practitioner’s Guide to Constitutional Remedies explores how South African courts use constitutional remedies to protect and enforce rights in the Constitution. The report looks at the effectiveness of those remedies, and the realities practitioners face in enforcing court orders and securing government compliance. The guide draws on legal doctrine, case law, and practitioner insight to support strategic constitutional litigation in South Africa.

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Stop Stockouts – Impact, Adaptation and Opportunity

Having monitored medicines availability over the past 13 years, the Stop Stockouts Project was anxious to establish the impact on the health system and public health users in the months immediately following the PEPFAR withdrawal. Using a mixed-method approach, this report draws on Ritshidze’s open-source national datasets (considering comparative quantitative data collected over eighteen months from 1 January 2024 to 31 June 2025) and from Key Informant Interviews conducted between 15 November 2025 and 20 March 2026.

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Orientation and Mobility Report: The Importance of Orientation and Mobility Training for Learners with Visual Impairments in South African schools (2026)

This report examines the importance of orientation and mobility training for learners with visual impairments in South African schools. It outlines how the lack of such training limits these learners’ independence, safety, and access to education.

You can also download the audio version here.

Know Your Constitution: A Handbook to the South African Constitution (2025)

The Know Your Constitution handbook sheds light on what the Constitution says, how its different parts work, and demonstrate the power it makes available to the people of South Africa. We aim to bring the Constitution to life through people’s stories and experiences. The handbook is divided into the following sections: Introduction, Open and Democratic Society, Socio-Economic Rights, How Government Works, and Activating Change.

2025 Year in Review (2025)

In 2025, SECTION27 continued its efforts to improve access to healthcare and basic education, while tackling the barriers that threatened the realisation of these rights. Despite funding cuts in the sector, vigilante groups unlawfully blocking access at public health facilities and persistent inequalities in accessing quality basic education, we achieved landmark legal victories, strengthened accountability and worked with our partners to drive systemic change.

Adolescent Sexual and Reproductive Health Rights (2025)

This book focuses specifically on the sexual and reproductive health rights. It explains the legal framework that supports these rights, as well as the mechanisms available to protect individuals when their rights are violated.

SECTION27’s Contribution in Eradicating Pit Toilets in Limpopo Schools (2025)

SECTION27 commissioned an evaluation to assess its contribution to the eradication of pit toilets and the improvement of school sanitation infrastructure in Limpopo public schools. While noting the important efforts of government, community stakeholders and civil society partners in advancing this agenda, the evaluation focused specifically on SECTION27’s strategies and actions. The evaluation aimed to understand how SECTION27’s interventions contributed to broader systemic change within this collective effort.

Vaal Triangle Priority Area Health Impact Report (2025)

In August 2025, SECTION27 and the Vaal Environmental Justice Alliance (VEJA) conducted research on the health impacts of greenhouse gas emissions from coal-fired power stations in the Vaal. The study explores links between air quality and health, community perceptions, and local risks, aiming to inform stronger policies for cleaner air and climate resilience.

Annual Review 2024 (2024)

Among other matters, 2024 saw SECTION27 achieving no less than five significant court victories in cases in which we represented the Life Esidimeni bereaved families; blind learners hoping to gain accounting qualifications; learners who were assaulted by their teachers at school; an organisation representing the women and their families most impacted by coal-fired power pollution; and blind and visually impaired people wanting to read.

Climate-proofing children‘s right to access Healthcare Services and their right to Basic Education (2025)

This toolkit is designed to equip civil society organisations with a plan to address the advocacy and campaigning needs in the sector, in a joint effort to hold state actors responsible for child-facing basic education and health services in South Africa accountable.

Opportunities and constraints in integrating Climate Justice in Health and Basic Education using an advocacy agenda (2025)

South Africa’s Constitution guarantees everyone the right to an environment that is not harmful to their health or well-being, and that the environment be protected for the benefit of current and future generations; the right to have access to healthcare services; and the right to a basic education, among others..

2024 Year in Review (2024)

In 2024, SECTION27 continued its efforts to address access to quality healthcare services, focusing on structural barriers that hinder the realisation of the right to healthcare. We worked towards improving access to basic education and promoting quality within the education system.

30 Years of promoting Social Justice (2023)

2023 was an important year for SECTION27. In November, we celebrated our 30-year anniversary, reflecting on three decades of catalysing social justice. Looking back on our history highlighted the organisation’s ongoing strengths: the ability to adapt strategy, the use of the various tools of legal mobilisation, and the persistence that has seen SECTION27 fight alongside its clients and partners no matter how long it takes.

Effective Remedies in Socio-economic Rights Litigation (2024)

This report is based on a workshop on Effective Remedies in Socio-economic Rights Litigation held on 5 December 2023 at Cliffe Dekker Hofmeyr Inc’s offices in Johannesburg, South Africa. The workshop was a collaboration between SECTION27, Cliffe Dekker Hofmeyr and Sandra Liebenberg, H.F. Oppenheimer Chair in Human Rights Law in the Faculty of Law, University of Stellenbosch.

Contraceptive Supply Chain:
Stockouts and their Causes (2022)

In 2022, since finding that contraceptives make up the largest share of pharmaceutical medicines stockouts in South Africa, SSP aimed to not only continue to track stockouts but to also understand what has been driving this denial of women’s reproductive rights.

Climate Change As a Human Rights Risk (2024)

Climate change presents an existential crisis to human life and human systems throughout the world. More often than ever we see extreme weather events induced by climate change occurring in different parts of the world, and the pain and loss suffered by those who have been affected on the news.

2023 Year in Review (2023)

The year 2023 marked the 30th anniversary of SECTION27, incorporating the AIDS Law Project. The AIDS Law Project, established in 1993, was at the forefront of the civil society response to the HIV/AIDS epidemic in South Africa, together with longtime partner the Treatment Action Campaign. Since 2010, SECTION27 has engaged in legal mobilisation to take on the fight for basic education and health care rights.

Democracy and Constitutionlism : Civic Education Conference Report (2022)

The right to education is guaranteed by Section 29 of the South African Constitution. Given South Africa’s history of racialised inequality in education, the normative development of the right in South Africa has tended to focus on improved education
provisioning within the schooling context.

Legal Mobilisation for Rights : Annual Review 2022 (2022)

The 2022 edition of our Annual Review sheds light on some of the remarkable achievements of the organisation over the year. After four years of evidence gathering, investigations and hearings, 2022 saw the publication of the final reports from the Judicial Commission of Inquiry into State Capture, also known as the Zondo Commission.

HEALTH REFORM – Perspectives and Proposals (2021)

Health system reform efforts in South Africa appear to have stagnated. Following over a decade of discussion and debate, stakeholders are weary and do not trust each other’s motives and opinions. This stagnation is fatal. South Africa’s health system is under immense strain and its inequities are well known.

Crossing the road story book in multiple languages (2023)

Justice Zak Yacoob is a former judge of the Constitutional Court of SA. He is also blind. When he was at school and university, he depended on people to read for him because he didn’t have textbooks or legal texts in braille. Despite these difficulties, he rose to be a judge in the highest court of the country between 1998 and 2013.

#ENDINGTHEBOOKFAMINE – For People who are Blind or Visually Impaired (2023)

The Constitutional Court has declared the Copyright Act of 1978 unconstitutional and invalid to the extent that it limits access to literary and artistic works in accessible formats. The Court granted an immediate exception to copyright for persons with disabilities, allowing them to convert literary and artistic works into accessible formats without first getting authorisation from the copyright holder.

Basic Education Rights Handbook – Second Edition 2022 (2022)

SECTION27 has developed a Basic Education Rights Handbook in collaboration with partner organisations, Equal Education Law Centre, Equal Education, The Centre for Child Law, The Legal Resources Centre, The Southern African Litigation Centre and the Studies in Poverty and Inequality Institute. 

Free Healthcare Services in South Africa : A case for all mothers and children (2022)

As at October 2022, the Minister of Health had not determined any conditions regarding eligibility for free health services. That means there are no restrictions on the list of people eligible for free health services or free primary health services.

Access to Contraceptives in South African Public Health Clinics between April and June 2022 (2022)

After receiving reports regarding contraceptive stockouts over the past year, the Stop Stockouts Project (SSP) conducted a survey to collect data on contraceptive availability across the country. The data was collected by Ritshidze, a community-led monitoring project, between April and June 2022.

Making Rights Real – Annual Review 2021 (2021)

2021 was another incredibly challenging year for all of us. We continued to live with COVID-19 and the devastation it wrought on the country. In July 2021, we saw unprecedented civil unrest in the provinces of KwaZulu Natal and Gauteng unfold in the context of increasing poverty and deepening inequality.

Building a field of Economics and Human Rights (2021)

This report sets out lessons learned from a year-long project led by the Institute for Economic Justice (IEJ) in partnership with SECTION27 and the Center for Economic and Social Rights (CESR) aimed at building a ‘community of practice’ in South Africa around the intersection of economics and human rights.

People’s Country Operational Plan 2021 (2021)

This year’s “People’s COP” has been developed using data collected through Ritshidze in October, November and December 2020 (COP20 quarter 1). In addition to community-led monitoring data, the People’s COP has been further shaped following consultation with people living with HIV, key populations, community based organisations (CBOs), Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs), and Faith Based organisations (FBOs)—all stakeholders with collective experience at the forefront of South Africa’s HIV and TB response.

Celebrating impact – Annual Review 2019 (2019)

“In 2019 SECTION27 continued to punch above its weight and make some important headway on the social justice landscape. This review illustrates the immense passion and drive of the team of activist lawyers, researchers, communicators and community mobilisers who are all committed to the transformative power of the Constitution.”