President Cyril Ramaphosa’s Cabinet has approved the publication of the Constitution Eighteenth Amendment Bill for public comments, which will pave the way for South African Sign Language (SASL) to become an official language in the country.

The Bill amends Section 6(1) of the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa of 1996, which proclaims that South Africa’s 11 official languages are Sepedi, Sesotho, Setswana, siSwati, Tshivenda, Xitsonga, Afrikaans, English, isiNdebele, isiXhosa and isiZulu. The amendments will now give recognition to the South African Sign Language (SASL) as the 12th official language of the country.

We will inform you of the public participation process as the information becomes available. In the meantime, be on the lookout on the https://pmg.org.za/ website which is where public participation information is published.

This is the start of a long awaited journey. Thank you for the submit. As part of the process we will be submitting these signatures - please continue to share this petition.