TRC Final Report

Volume 4

Chapter 7

Subsection 2

Farm prisons⁵

16 Another gap was the notorious farm prisons system about which nobody came forward to give evidence. The farm prisons system ensured that farmers were supplied with a cheap supply of labour. African people who failed to produce their passes were, in theory, offered the option of ‘volunteering’ as farm labour in exchange for having charges dropped against them. Arrests for failure to produce a pass became a rich source of labour for the farms. The General Circular 23 of 1954, issued by the Department of Native Affairs stated:

17 The prisoners were not taken to court but to labour bureaux where they would be induced or forced to volunteer. Joel Carlson, a Johannesburg attorney, uncovered some of the gross violations of human rights that resulted from the system. An affidavit by Robert Ncube in the late 1950s stated:

18 As a result of the publicity around this and other cases, the farm labour scheme was suspended. However, within weeks, the government passed an amended Prisons Act of 1959, providing for short-term offenders to be processed quickly through the courts and sent to the farms. The act provided that the farms be considered prisons and that it was a criminal offence to publish anything about prison conditions without the prior consent of the Commissioner of Prisons.