Apartheid was a political and social system in South Africa while it was under white-minority rule. This was used in the 20th century, from 1948 to the early 1990s. The system was used to deny many rights of the non-white people, mainly black people who lived in South Africa in the beginning of the apartheid times. The law allowed the white people to be in certain areas. Black people had to carry special passes or have permission to live and work in particular areas. The government separated mixed communities and forcibly moved many people.
The European presence in South Africa dates back to the 17th century when the Dutch East India Company established the Cape Colony outpost. Over the next three centuries, Europeans, primarily of British and Dutch origin, would expand their presence in South Africa to pursue the land’s abundance of natural resources such as diamonds and gold. In 1910, whites founded the Union of South Africa, an independent arm of the British Empire that gave the white minority control of the country and disenfranchised blacks.
Although South Africa was majority black, the white minority passed a series of laws and amendments that resulted in the occupation of 80 to 90 %of the country’s land. The 1913 Land Act unofficially launched apartheid by requiring the black population to live on reserves. Apartheid officially became a way of life in South Africa in 1948, when the Afrikaner National Party came into power after promoting the racially stratified system. In Afrikaans, "apartheid" means “apartness” or “separateness.” More than 300 laws led to apartheid’s establishment in South Africa.
apartheid was a moral social political horror and one law was a perfect illustration.
On 19 June 1985, the Parliament of South Africa that repealed the laws prohibiting marriage and sexual intercourse between white people and people of other races. It was one of the early legislative steps towards the end of apartheiD WITH The Immorality and Prohibition of Mixed Marriages Amendment Act, 1985(Act No. 72 of 1985)
The act repealed section 16 of the Immorality Act, 1957, which prohibited extramarital sex between a white person and a non-white person. It also made other consequential amendments related to the repeal of section 16, and removed the higher penalties for brothel-keeping and procuring when the sex in question was interracial. It also amended certain sections of the Criminal Procedure Act, 1977, that referred to violations of section 16.
It also repealed the Prohibition of Mixed Marriages Act, 1949, which do not allowed a white person and a non-white person from contracting a marriage and invalidated any such marriage contracted outside South Africa by a South African citizen or resident. The repeal did not automatically validate such marriages previously invalidated, but allowed the spouses to apply to the Director-General of Home Affairs to have the marriage validated.
The "Prohibition of Mixed Marriages Amendment Act, 1968" (Act No. 21 of 1968) was a South African Act of Parliament which amended the Prohibition of Mixed Marriages Act, 1949 to extend it to invalidate inter-racial marriages entered into by South African men living outside South Africa. It was effectively repealed by the Immorality and Prohibition of Mixed Marriages Amendment Act, 1985.
Immorality Act was the title of two acts of the Parliament of South Africa which prohibited, amongst other things, sexual relations between white people and people of other races. The first Immorality Act, of 1927, prohibited sex between whites and blacks, until amended in 1950 to prohibit sex between whites and all non-whites. The second Immorality Act, of 1957, continued this prohibition and also dealt with many other sex offences. The ban on interracial sex was lifted in 1985, but certain sections of the 1957 act dealing with prostitution remain in force as the The Immorality Act, 1927 (Act No. 5 of 1927) prohibited sexual intercourse outside of marriage between "Europeans" (white people) and "natives" (black people). The penalty was up to five years imprisonment for the man and four years imprisonment for the woman. A person’s color during trial was dictated by their ‘race’, a term which at the time described a person’s appearance, mannerisms, and assumed descent/ethnicity (similar to later ‘color classifications’ recognized during the Apartheid era of South African history, where races were decided upon by government officials, not pre-determined by the true ethnicity of the accused). The act also prohibited "procuring" women for interracial intercourse, and contained a proposal that described a punishment of up to six years of imprisonment specifically for colored women who were thought to be provoking white males to have intercourse with them.
The Prohibition was designed to "protect" white political and social dominance by preventing a handful of people from blurring the line between white society and everyone else in South Africa. It also showed that the National Party was going to fulfill its promises to protect the white race, unlike its political rival, the United Party, which many thought had been too lax on that issue.
The police tracked down mixed couples suspected of having a relationship. Homes were invaded and doors were smashed down in the process. Mixed couples caught in bed, were arrested. Underwear was used as forensic evidence in court. Most couples found guilty were sent to jail. Blacks were often given harsher sentences.
One of the first people convicted of the immorality act was a Cape Dutch reformed minister; he was caught having sex with a domestic worker in his garage. He was given a suspended sentence and the parishioners bulldozed the garage to the ground.
Apratheid lasted from 1948 to 1994 ....way way too long.
To know more about the subject:
Dugard, John. "Human Rights and theSouth African Legal Order." Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1978.
Jacobson, Cardell K., Acheampong Yaw Amoateng, and Tim B. Heaton. "Inter-Racial Marriages in South Africa." Journal of Comparative Family Studies 35.3 (2004)
Myre, Greg (18 June 1991). "South Africa ends racial classifications". Associated Press. Cape Girardeau: Southeast Missourian. Retrieved 1 March 2018.
Sofer, Cyril (1949). "Some Aspects of Inter-Racial Marriages in South Africa, 1925-46". Africa: Journal of the International African Institute. 19 (3): 187–203
Higgenbotham, A. Leon Jr., and Barbara K. Kopytof. "Racial purity and interracial sex in the law of colonial and antebellum Virginia." Georgetown Law Review
Furlong, Patrick Joseph. "The Mixed Marriages Act: a historical and theological study." Cape Town: University of Cape Town, 1983.
