Abstract
Although South Africa is considered to have the most comprehensive social assistance system in Africa, it has a long way to go when it comes to extending its social protection to informal economy workers, including women reclaimers. These workers despite their contributions to environmental sustainability, continue to face challenges at work, including hazardous working conditions, and in the midst of it all, they still lack access to social security and labour rights, such as healthcare coverage, maternity benefits and unemployment benefits. South Africa’s social security is based on the notion of “earning capacity” which becomes a huge problem when dealing with informal economy workers, because their challenge is not “earning” income, but “insufficient” income, which does not fall under the scope of coverage. Moreover, since these workers are not included in the definition of “employee” in section 213 of the LRA, they lack labour protection as well. These exclusions thus reflect broader inequalities in the national social protection framework, which fails to address the needs of women reclaimers. This, therefore, annotates the need for South Africa to refer to foreign jurisdictions that have successfully made significant strides in the integration of informal economy workers into their social protection systems, such as Zambia and India. Each of these jurisdictions has implemented innovative policies and legislation offering a blueprint for South Africa to expand its social protection net inclusively and sustainably. Over the past years, courts have also interpreted the right to social security entrenched in section 27 of the Constitution, and this is seen in Khosa v Minister of Social Development 2004 6 SA 505 (CC), Mahlangu v Minister of Police 2021 4 ILJ 269 (CC) and Soobramoney v Minister of Health, KwaZulu-Natal 1998 1 SA 765 (CC), and also extending protection to informal economy workers as seen in the Makwickana and SA Informal Trader Forum case. This dissertation critically analyses whether women reclaimers enjoy social protection in South Africa, and the need to extend social protection to these women.