The FW de Klerk Foundation will release its annual Human Rights Report Card on 18 March 2026, in commemoration of Human Rights Day and in honour of what would have been President FW de Klerk’s 90^th birthday. The Report Card aims to provide an independent assessment of the extent to which South Africans enjoy the rights and freedoms guaranteed in the Constitution.

“South Africa’s human‑rights picture remains mixed,” says Daniela Ellerbeck, an attorney and Manager of the FW de Klerk Foundation’s Constitutional Rights Programme. “The Report Card records severe pressure on rights to life and security, equality and socio‑economic entitlements – largely due to violent crime, Gender Based Violence and Femicide, failing water and sanitation and governance weaknesses. Simultaneously, it also notes improvements in dignity protections, anti‑trafficking enforcement, political rights administration and limited economic stabilisation.”

According to Christo van der Rheede, Executive Director of the Foundation, the Report Card also outlines more than 30 practical recommendations aimed at strengthening constitutional protections. “Our proposals focus on critical issues including crime and policing, equality and employment equity, youth unemployment and access to work opportunities,” he says. “These are practical and actionable structural reforms intended to improve the daily lives of South Africans and to reinforce the core values on which our constitutional democracy rests.”