South Africa's commission for employment equity -- which monitors transformation in the South African workplace -- has come out with all guns firing against a Solidarity trade union employment-equity plan that proposes a code of good practice for affirmative action, which promotes the commitment of a non-designated group (whites).

While South African law guarantees refugees and asylum seekers the right to work, many employers discriminate against them. In part this is a reflection of the xenophobic attitudes of many South Africans, which Majodina ascribes to a complex mix of historical, social and political factors, combined with our long isolation during apartheid.

In Africa, women’s rights to inherit and own property have been a subject of discussion on the continent. Widows have faced hard times following the demise of their spouses. They are not able to exercise their rights because customary laws have premium over statutory ones in many countries despite international conventions and declarations. These issues were discussed at a recent conference in Accra, Ghana.

AfriForum says it had seemed for a period of five years - from June 1991 to May 1996 - that South Africa was on the way of establishing a truly non-racial democracy. But since then, several laws and actions taken by government were in essence creating a new system of racial classifications.

A pastor from South Africa living on the Isle of Man who brought Africans to the UK illegally to work for as little as £1.36 an hour to build himself a luxury house received a six - month jail sentence, suspended for two years last week.