Various organisations, including unions and civil rights groups, have refused to celebrate Freedom Day as socio-economic challenges 31 years later in democracy.
The organisations said the social backlogs that democracy promised to overcome have instead deepened.
Freedom Day is a day South Africa celebrates its first post-apartheid election.
On April 27, 1994, a new path for South Africa was paved and the idea of a rainbow nation was cemented. This was the first democratic national election held in the country where all people could vote irrespective of their skin colour.
The fight for liberation and an equal South Africa culminated in a single day that would change the trajectory of the country.
Despite this gain, South Africa faces multiple interconnected socio-economic challenges. These include high unemployment, inequality and poverty.
These are exacerbated by issues such as corruption, poor infrastructure and limited access to basic services.
The South African Federation of Trade Unions (Saftu) said while the political right to vote was achieved in 1994, economic liberation has been brutally deferred.
The federation said rural areas remain zones of abandonment. Informal settlements and townships are scenes of permanent degradation — where millions live without dignity, trapped in overcrowded, unsafe, filthy, and uninhabitable conditions.
“Now even small towns, once relatively livable, are decaying rapidly, racing to join the working-class residential areas in collapse. Potholes, broken water infrastructure, electricity blackouts, refuse piling up, crime, and environmental hazards are no longer exceptional — they are the new normal,” said general secretary Zwelinzima Vavi.
Vavi said the government committed to ambitious targets under the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the National Development Plan (NDP 2030) Yet, 31 years into freedom unemployment remains a national disaster, officially at 31.9%, with the expanded unemployment rate at 41.9%. Poverty remains entrenched, with 63% of the population living below the upper-bound poverty line of R1,558 per month, and 23.7% living below the food poverty line of R760 per month.
“Education is in crisis – while access has expanded, quality remains deeply unequal. Poor learners attend overcrowded, under-resourced schools, while wealthy elites access world-class private education. Healthcare is under siege and despite important advances in access, austerity and creeping privatisation have led to collapsing infrastructure, understaffing, and unsafe public hospitals.”
Safety and security have collapsed – Murder, rape, and violent crimes have soared, with police services underfunded, demoralised, and unable to guarantee the safety of communities.
Climate change disasters are devastating communities, with thousands displaced by floods, droughts, and fires. Yet government planning remains reactive, uncoordinated, and wholly inadequate,” he said.
The sentiments were echoed by the General Industries Workers Union of SA (Giwusa), saying the promises of freedom, dignity, and equality have been shattered by the ruthless advance of capitalism. The union added that what millions fought and died for has been betrayed by a system that replaced apartheid with exploitation dressed in democratic robes.
Giwuss president Mametlwe Sebei said although the union acknowledged that the end of apartheid brought about the end of the daily racial humiliations of the black working class, they did not fight and die for mass unemployment, starving wages and casualised jobs, the continuation of land theft, sexual and gender-based violence to be rife and youth to be gunned down for daring to protest.
“This Freedom Day, we declare openly: There is no real freedom under capitalism. We owe this system nothing but its overthrow. We should not beg for crumbs. We must fight for everything they have stolen. We fight for socialism – a system where the wealth of South Africa belongs to those who produce it: the working class,” Sebei said.
The South African National Christian Forum (SANCF) said the Freedom Charter has not yet been implemented, saying poverty, unemployment and inequality have been on the rise since 1994.
The forum’s president Bishop Marothi Mashashane said: “We cannot celebrate the document which we are told is the best constitution in the world but it is never implemented, people will not eat or wear this piece of paper which is violated by the same politicians who wrote it,” he said, adding that there is nothing to be celebrated in the country where there is no justice for the poor.
Meanwhile, housing rights group, Abahlali baseMjondolo hosts ‘UnFreedom Day’ Soweto, where members gathered to discuss issues including unemployment, housing and a lack of basic services.
The group said true freedom is still out of reach for many citizens, adding that people are not free because they were denied access to land, good housing and job opportunities.
