Restitution cannot stand as an independent idea on its own. It belongs together with other words like justice, reconciliation, transformational development and peace building. It has a personal, communal, institutional and national component to it.

Restitution can offer a strategy as to how we can reduce the structural harms of our past. ...

An illustration that may help us better understand restitution is that of a stolen bicycle. Imagine that a man’s bicycle is stolen, which means he now has no transport and cannot get to work, and he loses his job. Without his job, he cannot educate his children or support his family. Perhaps he used that bicycle to run errands for the homebound elderly ...

Restitution is a complex term that is often misunderstood and evokes emotion from most South Africans, whether it be relief and hope, or fear and anger. Some have mistakenly referred to it as retribution; others think it is about revenge. We often hear it used in legal terms. For example, a man who has stolen R1000 is ordered to make compensation ...