By Marshall Dlamini
The period from the 29th of May to the 5th of June marks our national child protection week in South Africa. This week is meant to raise awareness on the rights of children provided for in the Constitution and in other legislation. These rights enjoin the State and society at large to take responsibility for the upbringing, safety and security of children in the country. Section 28 of the Constitution provides for a wide variety of basic rights for children in the country, including the right to a name and nationality from birth, the right to family care, or to appropriate alternative care where family care cannot be secured, the right to basic nutrition, shelter, basic healthcare and social services. The Constitution also provides that children must be protected from maltreatment, neglect, and abuse, as well as protection from exploitative labour practices. This section concludes by affirming that in each and every matter concerning children, their best interests are always paramount.
This year marks twenty-six years since the adoption of the Constitution, and over the past twenty six years, the plight of children in this country has been gradually eroding, and the rights embedded in the Constitution are proving meaningless in light of the daily struggles faced by children. In 2007, the University of Cape Town reported that there were about 122 000 children living in child headed households in this country. This meant that these children were without parental care, their rights to food, to shelter, to basic health services and to education could not be guaranteed. In 2015, this number had been reduced into 90 000, and that there were 50 000 child headed households in the country, and to 55 000 by 2019. This is still a large number of children whose futures cannot be guaranteed because they have no parental care and often don’t know where to get food. In 2021, Statistics South Africa also reported that about one-fifth (21,3%) of children aged 17 years and less, did not live with their parents, meaning that some stayed with grandparents and others with relatives.
This situation is a breeding ground for poverty, as children are simply incapable to working to provide for themselves, and are often exploited and abused by those with resources. It is no surprise therefore that more than 60% of children in this country are considered poor. The Child Survey conducted by Statistics South Africa in 2020 showed that 6 out of every 10 children in the country are multidimensionally poor. At the time STATSA indicated that
“Black African children (68,3%) show the highest percentage of multidimensional poverty as compared to their peers from other population groups. Multidimensional poverty is highly prevalent amongst double orphans (77,3%) and paternal orphans (75,0%) as opposed to non-orphans and maternal orphans. The report shows that more than twice as many children living in rural areas (88,4%) face multidimensional poverty compared to children in urban areas (41,3%). The highest multidimensional poverty rates are found amongst children residing in Limpopo (82,8%) and Eastern Cape (78,7%). Gauteng and Western Cape, on the other hand, are best off with respectively 33,6% and 37,1% of children being multidimensionally poor. Those living in non-metropolitan municipalities (73,7%) indicate much higher multidimensional poverty rates than children in metropolitan municipalities (39,6%).”
This was conducted prior to the socio-economic devastation brought about by the COVID pandemic, which has led to a massive reduction in employment. The most vulnerable victims of unemployment are children, who depend on parents and relatives to have food and clothing. With current rates of unemployment at close to 50%, the plight of children is too grim to imagine.
These conditions also contribute to the massive school dropout rates we have seen over the past decade. Consistently over the past ten years, we have seen more than a million pupils registering for Grade 1 across the country, but only half of these children stay in the school system until their Grade 12 year, and only a fraction of those who write exams do qualify for further education.
Coupled with these problems is the general state of fatherlessness in the country. Many of the children grow up without their fathers, with the 2017 Statistics SA General Household Survey, a shocking 61.8% of children under the age of 18 live without their father. Of this number, 10.1% of children’s fathers are deceased, while 51.7% of children’s fathers are alive, but not living with the child. Many of these fathers do not support their children, neither do they provide emotional support and guidance to their children. The role of men in bringing and nurturing children is crucial for the emotional stability of children, but this has sadly been ignored by many fathers. Men need to man up, and realise that their neglect of their children will have long lasting deleterious effects on the future of their children and the country.
The by-product of these circumstances is not difficult to ascertain. As children grow without guidance and without future prospects, they will gravitate towards criminal activities. On Thursday the 2nd of June, Parliament will pass Regulations emanating from the Child Justice Act. These regulations will impute criminal culpability to children from the age of 12 years. The country is too quick to legislate for the criminalisation of children, while very slow in creating conditions for the full development of these children so that their future and that of the country can be in better hands.
A comprehensive approach is needed to address the plight of children in this country, one that place the interests of the children on top of everything else, as the Constitution demands. For this to happen, we need proactive and fully capacitated department of Social Development, with fully qualified social workers able to be present and serve every single location in this country. In our 2019 manifesto, we were ridiculed when we asked that each and every school must have a fully qualified social worker to look after the psycho-social needs of the children. This will go a long way in detecting problems that may lead to children dropping out of school. We also advocated for the increase in social grants, because we know, as StatsSA proved, that grandparents should the most responsibility for raising their grandchildren. Taking care of the aged automatically translates into taking care of their grandchildren.
There is no gainsaying in claiming that while government will be celebrating this National Children’s Week, millions of children across the country have very little to celebrate.
*Dlamini is the Secretary General of the Economic Freedom Fighters and a Member of the Parliament of South Africa.