Child Protection Week 2008
Getting South Africa ready to implement the Children’s Act
Violent images have seared the nation’s consciousness as our country reels under the avalanche of xenophobic mayhem that threatens the very essence of our democracy. It is a democracy that we have fought hard in which to assert the rights of our most vulnerable, especially our children. Traditionally, the end of May each year has become known for the collective action in the country to campaign for child protection and development, during Child Protection Week.
Child protection week 2008 runs from 26 May to the 1st of June, which marks International Children’s Day. For the last 10 years, our country has galvanized efforts to remember our children and make sure the nation focuses sharply on their issues. This year Child Protection Week has been marred by the ugly and unacceptable attacks on children and their families in the Gauteng province, through atrocious xenophobic attacks.
We have to work together fervently to ensure that such criminal attacks never again take place in our country. The trauma visited upon these children will take a lifetime to heal. We must use Child Protection Week to remember those children, whether South African or those of immigrants, who fell innocent victim to uncalled for barbaric attacks.
Child Protection Week has now become an entrenched campaign of government, media, civil society, the religious community, and indeed the whole of South Africa when we ponder how we treat our children.
For a few years in the beginning, Child Protection was celebrated under the theme “Child Protection is Everybody’s business.” In later years the theme was changed to “Caring Communities Protect Children”.
In 2008 the theme is “Getting South Africa ready to implement the Children’s Act”. This is in recognition of the two landmark pieces of legislation that have been signed into law by the President, viz. The Children’s Act of 2005, and the Children’s Amendment Act of 2008.
The country has waited more than a decade for these two pieces of legislation, which have far reaching implications regarding the constitutional rights of children, and intend to give meaning to the rallying cry and slogans of the children’s movements such as “Making South Africa fit for children”; “Bana Pele”, “Children First”, “Abantwana Kuqala”.
Indeed the time has come when the rights and protection of children occupy centre stage in the nation’s consciousness. The days when child protection week was dominated by incidents of child abuse, horrors of child rapes, and generally about child-directed violence need to become history.
They need to be replaced by a paradigm which includes the best interest of the child as envisaged in the new legislation, where children occupy centre stage as they should, and have a central role in the life of the nation as envisaged by the Constitution and the Children’s Act.
In practice this calls for fundamentally radical shifts in perceptions and government and civil society roles. As resources are given to implement these acts, we will see massive improvements in the situation of children, as resources are made available to make their lot a better one.
This means ensuring that all eligible children receive the child support grant, progressively until they reach the age of 18 when this has been legislated and in line with the Polokwane resolutions of the ANC. In another positive development, from the 1st of June, we will be able to provide social grants to children who have alternative forms of identification. Many children have been unable to access grants due to not having birth certificates. Parents and care givers can now apply for their children, using sworn affidavits. We are proud that presently, over 8,1 million children now benefit from the Child Support Grant, including the children of immigrant communities.
Government has many programmes aimed at improving the lives of children. Our plan is that all eligible children should have access to Early Childhood Development (ECD) services, with a uniform subsidy across all provinces. They will be taught by qualified personnel who will ensure that they get the best start in life as they go through the developmental stages of early childhood preparing them for a better life through adequate nutrition, medical care, and education. From April 2007 to February 2008 1 981 ECD sites were registered nationally, with over 350 000 children benefiting from subsidies; during the current financial year we have reached agreement that all provinces will provide a minimum subsidy of R11 per child per day.
Recognising the important role played by individuals in caring for children we have facilitated the disbursement of over 460 000 Foster Child grants and over 100 000 Care Dependency grants. Our efforts have also resulted in the approval of 6 321 adoptions of which 631 were inter-country adoptions.
Child Protection Week is an opportunity to mobilise communities towards a new paradigm of putting children first. This will be kick-started by the Children’s Act implementation conference at the Birchwood Hotel in Kempton Park on the 27-29 May, which brings government and civil society to deliberate on what it will take to ensure the country will be ready to implement the Children’s Act.
The conference is but a first step in ensuring we all act in unity as we approach this new legislation which calls for a fundamental transformation of our relations with our children. It will also make us understand what it means to be a caring society.
The community mobilization referred to entails going to different communities in road-shows to spread the word about the new legislation. This will ensure that there is a new pact in the way we treat children and a new partnership for development, to which every member of society must belong and not miss out on this new development.
The time is ripe to tell child abusers across the nation that their time is up, the game is over, and they will not be able to carry on as before as they will be held accountable for their actions and proactive steps will be taken against them.
This is a clarion call for all those who love children to come together in a massive children’s movement that calls for the speedy implementation of the Children’s Acts.
The situation is pregnant with the possibility that the Children’s Act will give birth to a new South African child, who has been properly nurtured from birth, taught the values of Ubuntu, given all the developmental assistance available, who can be an asset to society from early childhood through school years into adulthood.
We know that this is possible because we have seen and experienced it in other countries, where everything possible is done to give children the best start in life, and programmes are designed to make sure that the developmental needs of citizens are taken cognizance of from birth to the grave.
With political and societal will the anomaly of child abuse and neglect, child directed violence and doing unpleasant things to our children can be reversed to such an extent that parents can rest assured of raising their children in harmony and peace with positive backing from all of society.
Let us work together to make Child Protection Week 2008 a collective effort to make South Africa a better country for our children.
