Namibia: Why Inflict Our Own Vendors With Apartheid Municipal Bylaws?

The informal economy is the heartbeat of daily survival in Windhoek. It feeds families, creates self-employment, and absorbs thousands of people excluded from the formal job market.

Yet despite this reality, the City of Windhoek continues to enforce outdated municipal bylaws in ways that criminalise poverty and punish hardworking street vendors.

This was demonstrated recently when informal trading structures in Windhoek West and Dorado Valley were forcibly removed by City Police. The municipality…