The South African People’s Tribunal on AgroToxins (SAPToA)
The SAPToA is a coalition of affected communities, civil society groups, trade unions, and academics dedicated to exposing the dangers of pesticides in South Africa and supporting those impacted by agricultural toxins.
SAPToA hosted
the South African People’s Tribunal on AgroToxins
22-23 March, 2025
Protea Hotel in Stellenbosch, South Africa
On Human Rights Day, Friday 21 March, the coalition came together to set up the exhibition and prepare for the Tribunal, which took place on Saturday 22 March and Sunday 23 March.
If you missed the livestream, we encourage you to watch the recordings on YouTube, in solidarity of this landmark event, that gives affected individuals the chance to testify and highlight systemic human rights violations.
The Tribunal will be led by the lived experiences of farm workers and dwellers on South Africa’s industrial farms, community members affected by the UPL chemical warehouse fire, and expert testimony from academics, researchers, and support organisations. These testimonies expose the normalisation that underpins not only the use of agrotoxins in South Africa, but also the impacts on farm workers, society, and the environment.
We are honoured to have three deeply respected and esteemed Jurors who have given their time to hear the testimonies of affected peoples, supporting organisations, and experts. We are deeply moved by their commitment to justice for people who often have no voice or power in a system that values people over profit.
Our heartfelt thanks to Judge Navi Pillay, Dr Sophia Kisting-Cairncross, and Human Rights Commissioner Philile Ntuli.
Judge Navanethem “Navi” Pillay is a South African jurist who served as the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights from 2008 to 2014. Pillay was the first black woman judge of the High Court of South Africa. She has also served as a judge of the International Criminal Court and President of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda. Her four-year term as High Commissioner for Human Rights began on 1 September 2008 and was extended an additional two years to 2014. In April 2015, Pillay became the 16th President of the International Commission Against the Death Penalty.
Dr Sophie Kisting-Cairncross is the former director of the National Institute for Occupational Health, South Africa and formerly, she led the International Labour Organisation’s global Programme on HIV/Aids and the World of Work. Prior to that, she practiced occupational health and medicine at the University of Cape Town and spent nearly 20 years in public health hospitals in various countries in Africa. She was medical advisor for the Parliamentary Committee coordinating the ground-breaking Parliamentary Asbestos Summit in 1998, with extensive worker and community participation. She is currently working tirelessly toward the prevention and elimination of Tuberculosis (TB) among health workers and miners.
She led the team on the International Commission on Occupational Health (ICOH) position paper on TB among Health Workers, and she represented ICOH at the Africa Union side event on TB prevention during the United Nations General Assembly High level TB meeting in New York, 2018.
Commissioner Philile Ntuli is full-time at the South African Human Rights Commission with a focus on women’s relationship with the state. She is particularly interested in exploring how and whether South Africa’s project of democratisation can disrupt historical gendered hierarchies.
She holds a bachelor’s degree in Political Science and English Literature, as well as a post-graduate Diploma on Public Policy Development from the University of KwaZulu-Natal. She further obtained an Honours Degree in Sociology (Gender Studies) and a Master’s Degree in Social Science from the University of Pretoria. Ntuli has also graduated from the Thabo Mbeki African Leadership Institute on the topic of the African Political Economy.
We are further most grateful to the following participating experts:
- Wisdom Basera, a research/clinical scientist at the South African Medical Research Council, with experience in clinical and public health related to environmental exposures, adolescent health and both communicable and non-communicable diseases.
- Prof Leslie London, the Chair of Public Health Medicine in the School of Public Health and Family Medicine at the University of Cape Town (UCT). He leads research on pesticide hazards and chemical neurotoxicity, farm worker occupational health, and occupational and environmental epidemiology.
- Prof Rajen Naidoo is the head of Occupational and Environmental Health, within the School of Nursing and Public Health at the University of KwaZulu-Natal. His research interests are occupational and environmental respiratory diseases and dose response models.
- Prof Saloshni Naidoo is the Head of Public Health Medicine, in the School of Nursing and Public Health in the College of Health Sciences, University of KwaZulu-Natal. Among her research interests she focuses on healthcare workers and the risk of their work environments, and environmental impacts on women and child health.
- Prof Andrea Rother is the Head of the Environmental Health Division and Associate Professor in the School of Public Health and Family Medicine at UCT. She is also deputy director of the Centre for Environmental and Occupational Health Research (CEOHR) in the School. She is extensively involved in national and international policy development around reducing chemical and pesticide health and environmental health risks, and leads the development of a FAO guidance document on HHPs.
- Dr Cindy Stephen is the director of the Poisons Information Centre at the Red Cross War Memorial Children’s Hospital in Cape Town. She is also a clinical staff member of the Department of Paediatrics and Child Health at UCT, and contributes to AfriTox, a South African poisons information database, as well as the 24/7 Poisons Information Helpline.
Paola Vigletti is currently pursuing a PhD at the University of Cape Town to investigate the impacts of pesticide exposure and socioeconomic factors on child neurodevelopmental outcomes in agricultural communities.
- Rico Euripidou trained as an Environmental Epidemiologist at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine in the United Kingdom where he also worked at the toxicology centre. He is the Chemicals and Campaigns Support Coordinator managing strategic alignment of groundWork’s six campaigns. He works on issues of energy, chemicals policy, climate change and public health, all of which are closely interrelated.
About SAPToA
- Our network unites civil society organisations, trade unions, and individuals to create a stronger, collective voice against harmful agrochemical practices.
- We work tirelessly to ensure that farmworkers and affected communities have a platform to share their stories and demand accountability from the system.
- We provide education and resources to vulnerable communities, equipping them with the tools to advocate for safer agricultural practices and healthier living environments
- Through research and collaboration, we uncover the dangerous effects of pesticides and agrotoxins on workers, families, and ecosystems across South Africa.
SAPToA
Our Mission
Our Vision
Our Partners
Together we are fighting for Justice and a Pesticide-Free Future
Latest news
See below for the most recent updates
SAPToA to brief Parliament on Agrotoxins
UPDATE: Watch a recording of the Parliamentary Briefing below. Business Day covered the briefing, highlighting Judge Navi Pillay’s call for the Department of Agriculture to “urgently start phasing out the...
Pesticide poisons on farms, poisons in the streets: People’s Tribunal puts government, agrarian feudalism on trial in South Africa
People’s Tribunal on AgroToxins to expose agriculture’s ugly secrets Press Release 18 March 2025 On Human Rights weekend, the South African People’s Tribunal on AgroToxins will put the...
SA Pesticide policy: a timeline
South Africa (SA)’s pesticide policy is outdated and urgently in need of an overhaul The law that regulates agrotoxins in South Africa is the Fertilizers; Farm Feeds Agricultural Remedies...