Briefing Paper

Violent Crime on Farms and Smallholdings in South Africa

Farm attacks and farm murders are a contentious topic in South Africa. Claims have been made
that the criminal attacks on farms are a deliberate form of white – specifically Afrikaner – genocide.
But are farm dwellers and particularly white Afrikaans farmers the target? Or are these crimes part
of a bigger picture of escalating brutal violence countrywide? Are statistics accessible and accurate
so as to paint a true landscape of violent crime in rural South Africa?