Get ‘Em While They’re Young: Youth and Anti-Corruption in South Africa
Kavisha on a UNODC supported study tour in Kenya
Johannesburg, South Africa
It is the twentieth anniversary of the United Nations Convention against Corruption (UNCAC). The landmark convention that seeks to ensure a unified forum towards addressing corruption nationally, regionally and globally.
South Africa is currently implementing its National Anti-Corruption Strategy, promoting a whole of society approach towards tackling the issue. But what do we mean by “whole-of-society”?
I met with Kavisha Pillay, Head of Stakeholder Relations and Campaigns for Corruption Watch, UN Youth Ambassador, a member of the President's National Anti-Corruption Advisory Council, and a member of UNODC's Integrity Youth Advisory Board (Youth led).
Kavisha is the voice of a generation. A South African generation caught between despair and revolution. Despair at an increasingly bleak future. Revolution in the desire to change things.
“When Corruption Watch started in 2012, they organized a community engagement in my community Lenasia, in the South of Johannesburg. That was the year that corruption became a staple of conversations in South Africa. I harassed Corruption Watch to give me a job for weeks afterwards.
My first assignment was to write a letter to President Jacob Zuma, that was later published in City Press. I was twenty or so at the time. I was so chuffed with myself. When I look back on it, there's a few things that make me cringe a little, but it was a very brave thing at the time. And since then, it became this obsession of mine. Anti-corruption and good governance work.
I was part of this “Born Free” generation born in ’92, two years before we got to democracy. There was the feeling that post-apartheid South Africa was going to be different from what our parents grew up in. That there wouldn't be the deep inequality that they had experienced.”
Kavisha Pillay
Kavisha is thirty-one now, with eleven years under her belt, travelling the country meeting with youth, government, religious and traditional leaders and the private sector. She is acutely aware of her fellow citizens’ concerns and how high a task her country faces.
Corruption in South Africa, is a difficult subject because there are many who want to blame everything wrong in the country on corruption. It's a little bit more nuanced.
What we didn't consider post-apartheid was that so many people are now earning an income for the first time and able to look after their family members. To send them to university. Own a house, a car and purchase air travel. I don't think that we were thinking about these temptations.
And sometimes the temptation is: I never want to be poor again.
We underestimated how to bring people into a new government and a new system.
It’s a very different picture when you engage at the community level. There are people who have no other choice but to participate in a system where corruption is endemic, to get access basic rights and services, or hold their jobs.
I used to be young and naive thinking that I could see a corruption free society in my lifetime, but the way in which society works, I don't think a corruption free society is a realistic idea.
I tempered my expectations to seeing a reduced level of corruption in my lifetime.
I don’t excuse or condone corruption. But the way in which our society is structured compels people to participate in corruption.
You must meet people at their level and try to understand: why is this appealing to you?
It is quite lazy at this point, to simply say that people engage in corruption because of greed or loose morals.
If you don't deal with inequality, you’re always going to see higher levels of corruption, of crime, of unemployment.
Inequality is South Africa’s original sin, and we won’t see any changes until we address it.”
Kavisha is not talking as a novice, but over a decade of experience is still not enough sometimes.
Kavisha manning the Corruption Watch stand.
“As a young person and a woman, in rooms that are often predominantly male, predominantly older, you’re treated as a token and not taken seriously.
But young people actually have a stake. We don't know what the next five to ten years are going to look like because we don't know what the state of our society is going to be.
Should we have the loudest voice and the biggest platform?
No, I don't think so, but we need to include young people in these conversations, in legal reform and implementation because we will be involved much longer. Implementation takes time to come into fruition.
We ran a survey on young people’s perceptions on corruption.
The survey showed that young people have a bleak outlook on the state of corruption today, believe that it's going to get worse and since they can't change this, they might as well play the game and participate in it.
What is positive is that awareness among youth is growing, and I’m hoping the runup to the election will turn that awareness to action.
Last year I was appointed to serve on the President's Advisory Council, the National Anti-Corruption Advisory Council, and I'm the youngest. When I talk at public events, young people come up to me asking how to join the movement.”
Do you want to join the KP Army? You might already have. Kavisha believes it will take all of us to change things.
“I'm the head of my department at Corruption Watch. We're a team of seven all under the age of thirty-six all very committed to this issue.
It was very important to me to recruit young people even if they just stumbled upon it like I did.
To me the starting point is a mass rejection of corruption. If all of us were asked for a bribe to access a hospital said no, absolutely no. Would that change things? I don’t know. Is this me being naïve? Maybe, but I would hope so.
Kavisha is also a dancer, actually: if I hadn’t been an activist, I would have definitely been a dancer.
She practices traditional dancing from southern India, inherited from her mother.
Kavisha living her passion – traditional Indian dancing. (Credit: Zen Marie)
I started when I was four. It’s a fascinating journey for me. I helped me grow into my spirituality. It’s my happy place in my life. I throw dance parties on Friday, and they are epic.
We started merging activism and dancing. This year we put on a production at the Johannesburg Theatre around climate change, and on gender-based violence a few years back.
It’s amazing because we attract Indian audiences. Quite traditional and conservative who wouldn't necessarily engage with concepts of climate change or stigmatized issues like GBV.
Dancing taught me a sense of discipline. It brings perspective internally. This is what I feel. This is who I am.
These are my values.
We don’t have the luxury to give up. Corruption comes with a price tag, but there is no price tag on our future. I am mentally prepared for the long game. For many of us this is the struggle of a lifetime.”
The UNODC supports the work of the President’s National Anti-Corruption Advisory Council of which Kavisha is a member. In November 2023, UNODC and GIZ supported the hosting of the Council’s first Anti-Corruption National Dialogue which brought together representatives from government, business and civil society to consider strategies that have been proposed and assess work currently underway. UNODC will provide technical support to the NACAC workstream on procurement reform in order for an advisory to the President to be presented in 2024.
