E/CN.4/1999/15/Add.1 page 6 dating from the apartheid era; they welcome the legal verdicts which have already been made in support of the equality of men and women, and the sympathetic hearing they are receiving from Christian churches. They deplore the discrimination being suffered by Blacks within the Coalition and say they are determined to work towards equality between Blacks and Whites in the Coalition. 15. Since its return to the community of nations, South Africa has begun the process of ratifying international and regional instruments on the protection of human rights. The government has submitted the international conventions on human rights to Parliament for ratification; the legislation to implement them is in preparation. In collaboration with the Ministry of Education, provision is being made to introduce human rights programmes to the school and university curricula. II. IMPLEMENTATION OF POST-APARTHEID REFORMS 16. Since the 1994 elections, sweeping political changes have occurred. This is not the case in other sectors such as the economy, education and social affairs. The general election was only the starting point, according to the Minister of Justice. South African society is still riddled with racial divisions. Some people are still excluded, which explains the need to effect economic, social and cultural changes. Radical reforms are taking place in political institutions, the army, the police and the judiciary. A. 1. The reforms Fostering unity and reconciliation 17. The first task of the democratically elected Government was to foster unity and reconciliation among all sections of the South African population. Hence the establishment of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission: it has no legal function, but its main purpose is to reveal the causes, nature and extent of the human rights violations committed under apartheid. It also has the task of establishing the fate of the victims and survivors of human rights abuses, rehabilitating them or restoring their dignity, and compensating them. Lastly, the Commission can grant amnesty to perpetrators of human rights violations who agree to give evidence before it. 18. The Commission has devised a rehabilitation and compensation programme for the victims and survivors of the wide-ranging human rights abuses committed between 1960 and 1994. The five-part scheme has been submitted to the government and to Parliament for discussion and approval 4/ : (a) Individual reparation grants, which will be part of an individual financial grant scheme; (b) Symbolic reparation, which will help communities to commemorate together “the pain and victories of the past”; 4/ See Truth Talk, The Official Newsletter of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, Vol. 3, No. 1, November 1997.