The Silent Sentence: Human Rights Day

The Silent Sentence.

By Lesego Madihlaba

There are prisons without bars, without walls; only the absence of words.

A child sits in a classroom, eyes skimming over the letters on the board, but the meaning slips through their fingers like sand. The teacher’s voice fades into the background, replaced by a quiet panic; the kind that comes from knowing the world is speaking a language they were never

taught to understand.

Education is a right. A promise. A bridge. Yet, for millions of children in South Africa, it is a

locked door. In 2021, 81% of Grade 4 learners were unable to read for meaning. Not in English and not even in their home languages. The very foundation meant to carry them forward is breaking beneath their feet, forcing them into a future where opportunity is written in a language they cannot access.

Without literacy, justice becomes a distant echo. A child who cannot read their rights cannot defend them. Without literacy, poverty tightens its grip. A child denied education is a future worker bound to the lowest rung of the economic ladder. Without literacy, democracy loses its voice. A child who grows up unable to read is an adult excluded from shaping their country’s future.

Beyond the policies and statistics, there is a quiet crushing weight of exclusion. The shame of pretending to understand. The isolation of being left behind. On Human Rights Day, we

remember that freedom is more than the absence of chains but is the presence of opportunity. It is the power to read, to write, to carve one’s path in ink instead of fading into the history’s margins.

A Nation cannot heal when its children are left behind. And so, we do not just celebrate human rights; we demand them. Every child deserves more than just silence