Date: 16/03/2011
Source: The Congress of South African Trade Unions
Title: Cosatu: Vavi: Address by the general secretary, at the Second Biennial Substance Abuse Summit, Durban

Thank you for your invitation to this extremely important summit. I have been speaking against summits in the recent past, demanding efficient implementation of the existing policies. But this summit, more than a pamphlet and poster can do, will go a long way in highlighting one of the biggest challenges of South Africa.
This is a crisis only the poor and workers face in class terms, but it is a crisis also affecting the young. If you look at the socioeconomic facts it makes sense why it is the poor, workers and young people in particular who end up being most affected by the substance abuse crisis.
It is unemployment that drives so many to the booze and other substance abuse. South Africa has a higher rate of unemployment rate compared to any middle income country. This crisis has been deepening as demonstrated by statistics that show that in 1995 African unemployment was sitting at 38% in 1995 but worsened to 45% in 2005.
Today almost four out of every ten South Africans who want to find work cannot find it. Unemployment continues to discriminate against our people in terms of the race, gender and age. In 2009, the rate of participation of Africans in the labour force was 52% and for whites it was 68%. Among Africans of working age (15-64 years), only 36% are absorbed into employment whilst on the other hand, 65% of whites of working age are absorbed into employment[1] <#_ftn1> .
Among emerging markets, South Africa has the lowest labour force participation rate. Women and youth are the worse victims of this scourge, with 73% of all those who are unemployed aged under 35.
There is no official poverty line for South Africa. Yet, based on measures that are sensitive to household size, one study found that 57% of individuals in South Africa were living below the income poverty line in 2001, and this remained unchanged from 1996[2] <#_ftn2> . But measures that assume individuals need R322 a month to survive show that individual poverty has declined from 52.5% to 48%[3] <#_ftn3> .
This decline is said to be driven by an increase in the number of beneficiaries from government’s grant system from 2.5 million in 1999 to 12 million in 2007. This means that 25% of South Africa’s population lives on grants, and it is evidence of the anti-working class character of the post-1994 growth path. The economy reproduces poverty, and the state throws money at this problem, without intervening to change its structure.
Today we are sitting with a trophy of being the country with the biggest inequalities in the world. The top 10% of the rich accounted for 33 times the income earned by the bottom 10% in 2000[4] <#_ftn4> . By 2007, approximately 71% of African female-headed households earned less than R800 a month and 59% of these had no income; 58% of African male-headed households earn less than R800 a month and 48% had no income.
One of the sources of these economic challenges is the state of our education system. The poor’s children remain trapped in inferior education with wholly inadequate infrastructure. Consider that 70% of (matriculation) exam passes are accounted for by just 11% of schools, the former white, coloured, and Asian schools”[5] <#_ftn5> . What is of major concern is that 12-year olds in South Africa perform three times less than 11-year olds in Russia when it comes to reading and 16-year olds in South Africa perform three times less than 14-year olds in Cyprus when it comes to mathematics[6] <#_ftn6> .
Furthermore it is estimated only 3% of the children who enter the schooling system eventually complete with higher grade mathematics, only 15% of grade 3 learners pass both numeracy and literacy, 70% of our schools do not have libraries and 60% do not have laboratories, and 60% of children are pushed out of the schooling system before they reach grade 12. In 1997, approximately 1.4 million learners entered the system in Grade 1.
The matriculation pass figure of 334,718 learners in 2009 means that 24% were able to complete matriculation in the minimum of 12 years. Lastly, 55% of educators would leave the profession if they had an opportunity to do so. This is symptomatic of an ineffective and dysfunctional education system[7] <#_ftn7> .
In short, it is poverty and unemployment and the lack of any recreational facilities that leave young people with a feeling of hopelessness and worthlessness. If they see no prospect of ever getting a decent job and enough income to live a normal life, seeking oblivion through drugs and/or alcohol becomes a tempting escape route.
In short, in our country we have an army of 6 million people who want to work but can’t find jobs. Most of them are black, women and young without education and skills. This is what I have called a ticking bomb. This is the crux of the problem and this is where most our energies should be deployed to fix all our social problems including the scourge of HIV and AIDS, the crisis of rape of the old and young and violence.
This conference will be missing a point if we cannot see the strong interrelations between these challenges. We are talking here about the collapse of families that used to play such an important role as a support system of our communities. We are talking to the collapse of values.
To make this situation worse we still live in an extremely patriarchal society. Men are more likely to drink and spend all their time in the beer halls and shebeens instead of looking their children in the face when they have gone three nights without food. Women are more likely to stay put and work around the clock to ensure that their children have some form of meal. When the going gets tough it is they who will find firewood to boil water and salt and get kids to drink it just to have something warm in their stomach. Men are more likely commit family killings just because they can’t stand the humiliation that goes with unemployment. All this happen because men were socialised to believe that they are the heads, the providers and defenders of their families. When they can’t do this they go straight to depression and later substance abuse.
We can’t succeed to address this challenge until we have succeeded to build a society where men and women are equal and take equal responsibility for the challenges of life.
Today children as young as eight or nine start drinking alcohol. Drug abuse tends to begin among 13 or 14 year olds but in some areas it even starts as early as eight years old.
They often start out smoking marijuana before moving on to the hypnotic-sedative drug known as mandrax. Some low-grade heroin is also found in poor areas. The situation is often aggravated by the existence of gangs which organise drug dealing and are approaching children at a younger age to increase their markets.
Alcoholism is getting out of control in many areas. Some farm employers still pay workers with wine rather than money - the notorious and illegal ‘tot’ system. This leads to excessive alcohol consumption by adults which inevitably conditions children to see heavy drinking as normal behaviour.
Even children not yet born suffer, as a result of South Africa’s phenomenal level of foetal alcohol syndrome. As Health Minister Aaron Motsoaledi has said, “On average in other countries, it affects 20 people per 1000 population. In areas like the Western Cape it is already at 104”. Yet, as he added, “foetal alcohol syndrome is a very preventable form of intellectual incapacity”.

There are many direct ways in which we can do more to eradicate the problem. The existing laws must be more ruthlessly enforced. We all have to work more closely with the police to identify the drug barons and put them behind bars. We must step up campaigns to educate young people of the dangers of drug dependency. We may well need to pass new laws to close loopholes.
COSATU is not just talking about the problem. In the Western Cape we have taken the lead with the launch of a anti-drug awareness campaign, which is building a united force of police, government, civil society bodies, religious organisations, drug activist groups and business to work together to fight the problem.

As Provincial Secretary Tony Ehrenreich said at the launch of the campaign, drug addiction is tearing at the fabric of society and communities need to come together to declare war on the scourge of gangsterism and drugs. Gangsters and drug dealers must be rooted out of our communities because that is the only we will get rid of this scourge amongst us.

The campaign is also calling for more money to be ploughed into the establishment of drug rehabilitation centres. It is campaigning for the closure of shebeens, because alcohol tears apart as many families as does drugs. It may be a softer drug, but it causes as many problems.

However, all such initiatives will fail to eradicate drug and alcohol abuse unless we also eradicate poverty and mass unemployment, create decent jobs, transform our public education and healthcare services and deliver better services to our poor communities.
That is why the debate around the New Growth Path is so relevant. Unless we can build an economy based on manufacturing industry and create millions more decent sustainable jobs, we will not be able to resolve any of our deep-rooted social problems like substance abuse.
Unless we can offer hope to our youth, we will never to able to wean them away from practices which promise some sort-term escape, but inflict deadly long-term damage to their bodies and minds. I look forward to seeing your Summit Declaration and that your worthy and necessary campaign is taken to new heights.

Amandla