Children’s rights continue to be violated after new protection laws
Despite its good intentions, NPAC fails to arrest child abuse at home and in society
SA has been a country not fit for its children. Even after its world-acclaimed political dispensation that came with April 27 1994, the conditions children are in are nowhere near inspiring for our 30year-old democracy to write home about. The legacy of the country’s ugly past still lives with us.
With the nationwide revolt of June 16 1976, children were not spared. Their murder by security forces was unprecedented and so were the detentions that followed.
The onslaught continued into the ’80s and early ’90s. Children were caught up in the calculated “black-onblack violence”.
Children were randomly arrested, detained without trial and brutally assaulted while in detention, justified by the state of emergency. Many were driven out of school, displaced by the violence.
When 1994 came, the first action by a democratic government was to ratify international legal instruments to ensure that the rights of children were protected and promoted. These instruments included the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child and the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child. These were designed to ensure children’s rights were secured and sacrosanct.
To ensure implementation, the National Programme of Action for Children (NPAC) was created, at first coordinated by the department of health and later transferred to the presidency and located within the Office on the Rights of the Child.
This body consisting of all relevant national government departments, all premiers and civil society representatives was the engine to ensure the implementation of the delivery of all services for the promotion and protection of the rights of children.
The critical function of the NPAC was to monitor the implementation of child rights services and to report to the nation and multilateral organisations like the United Nations, the African Union, the International Labour Organisation and others. This structure was also responsible for ensuring that new legislation and policies were in the best interests of children while ensuring the prioritisation of the survival, protection, development and participation of children in all matters that affect them.
This infrastructure was at the core of educating society about the concept of children having rights, especially within families. It was also responsible for initiating Children’s Day, which was dedicated to celebrating the holistic rights of all children.
The NPAC was the engine behind the critical changes in the implementation of children’s rights. This included free healthcare for children and expectant mothers, free education, the national school nutrition programme, the child support grant, child labour policies, the Child Justice Act, the Children’s Act, the Family Violence, Child Protection and Sexual Offences Unit and many other positive developments.
However, there are still many instances where children are being physically and sexually violated. While some provinces have ensured police stations have social workers stationed there on full-time basis, others still do not have this service.
Sadly, the imbalances of the past are repeating in the present. While some children can walk to a nearby school, others need scholar transport. Some schools have modern infrastructure, others have overcrowded classrooms with pit toilet.
The recurring imbalance expresses itself in some children being guaranteed three meals a day, while others go to bed on empty stomachs. While some children have access to technology and internet services at school and home, others do not even have electricity in their schools and homes that are not more than one-roomed shacks.
While the rights of children have changed a lot, the road is still a long and winding one.
There is an urgent need as we move towards the seventh administration, to look at what worked effectively in the past and how systems that worked for the rights of children can be reinstated.