Hidden hunger in South Africa: the faces of hunger and malnutrition in a food secure country

South Africa is considered a ‘food-secure’ nation, producing enough calories to adequately feed every one of its 53 million people. However, the reality is that, despite some progress since the birth of democracy in 1994, one in four people currently suffers hunger on a regular basis and more than half of the population live in such precarious circumstances that they are at risk of going hungry.
The numbers of people facing hunger can be estimated at some 13 million in total. These numbers are disturbing, but behind every statistic is a face with a story about what it is like to face hunger in a nation where the few have plenty. This paper is based on the testimonies of women and men, urban and rural, and elucidates what it feels like to face hunger on a regular basis or to be constantly afraid of this threat.
‘[It is] genocide of the mind … because it affects the mind (fosters negative thoughts), the spirit (state of hopelessness) and the physical being (hunger).’- Chief of Khoisan, Bloemendal, Eastern Cape
Hunger, as described by participants in this study, means more than physical sensations of emptiness or pain, more than incessant cravings that cannot be satisfied. It is described by those interviewed as a phenomenon that creates ‘genocide of the mind’, inducing hopelessness and despair, depriving hungry individuals of dignity and demeaning them as social beings. Hunger is a personal and a communal malaise that crushes the potential of people to get out of poverty and to prosper. It is a manifestation of, and helps to perpetuate, damaging social inequality: poor households have to spend nearly half of their income on food but have to suffice with cheap, expired and non-nutritious food, creating a society that has ‘good access to bad food and bad access to good food’.

Publisher: Oxfam
Year of Publication: 2014
Download : 19868_hidden_hunger_in_south_africa_0.pdf