when were pass laws abolished in south africa
Pass laws In South Africa, pass laws were a form of internal passport system designed to segregate the population, manage urbanisation, and allocate migrant labour. Also known as the natives law, pass laws severely limited the movements of not only black African citizens, but other people's as well by requiring them to carry pass books when outside their homelands or designated areas. Before the 1950s, this legislation largely applied to African men, and attempts to apply it to women in the 1910s and 1950s were met with significant protests. Pass laws would be one of the dominant features of the country's apartheid system, until it was effectively ended in 1986.
Group Areas Act Group Areas Act was the title of three acts of the Parliament of South Africa enacted under the apartheid government of South Africa. The acts assigned racial groups to different residential and business sections in urban areas in a system of urban apartheid. An effect of the law was to exclude non-Whites from living in areas which were restricted to Whites (e.g., Sea Point, Lansdowne, Cape Town, Claremont). It caused many non-Whites to have to commute large distances from their homes in order to be able to work. The law led to non-Whites being forcibly removed for living in the "wrong" areas. The non-white majority were given much smaller areas (e.g., Tongaat, Grassy Park) to live in than the white minority who owned most of the country. Pass Laws required that non-Whites carry pass books, and later 'reference books'[1] (similar to passports) to enter the 'white' parts of the country.