Masters Opening Speech by Professor Charles Ngwena 2024

On 22 March, the Centre for Human Rights, on the heels of National Human Rights Day (21 March), hosted its annual welcoming Ceremony for the students on the Centre’s academic programmes. This year, the Centre welcomes 28 students in the LLM/MPhil programme in Human Rights and Democratisation in Africa (HRDA), 11 in the Sexual and Reproductive Rights in Africa (SRRA), and 16 in Multi-Disciplinary Human Rights (MDHR). This year there is no intake for the masters programmes in Disability Rights in Africa (DRIA), which has a new intake every two years. There is also no intake for the Trade and Investment Law in Africa (TILA), which is run in partnership alternating between the University of the Western Cape (UWC) and the University of Pretoria (UP), and is this year being held at the UWC.
In 2024, the Centre marks 25 years of the HRDA programme, the brainchild of Prof Christof Heyns and 10 years of the SRRA, birthed by Prof Charles Ngwena at UP.