Health and human rights in a South African bantustan

South Africa has stripped blacks (the majority population) of democratic rights and, over a period of 300 years, deprived them of their land; this dispossession culminated in 3.5 million involuntary removals of black South Africans to overcrowded and underdeveloped bantustans, on which a pseudo-independence is being conferred. Blacks are denationalized and disenfranchized in South Africa and their mobility is strictly controlled by the pass system, but their situation is even worse in the so-called 'homelands', where repression has replaced the rule of law. This paper presents a case study of health and human rights in the Ciskei, a bantustan that became 'independent' of South Africa in December 1981. It documents severe deprivation, widespread malnutrition and gross violations of human rights.