Joshlin tragedy underlines our failings on children’s rights
This month, South Africa is yet again commemorating Human Rights Month. Yet the rights of children continue to be trampled on, as shown by the harrowing headlines. Think of Joshlin Smith, the case of an innocent child who went missing that is attracting international headlines. Joshlin is one of the many missing children in South Africa right now.
The rights of children are enshrined in our constitution. Section 28 of the Bill of Rights clearly states that “children must be safeguarded from maltreatment, neglect, abuse, or degradation”. The Children’s Act further states that there is a need to “set principles for the care and protection of children”.
It is horrifying that in the first quarter of 2022/2023, reported kidnappings increased to 3,055 cases. The country is ranked seventh in the world when it comes to kidnappings, particularly of women and children.
Safeguarding cannot happen in isolation; we are collectively responsible for it.
In November last year, the Nelson Mandela Children’s Fund (NMCF) and Deloitte Africa released the “State of the South African Children” report, which detailed that in 2021, 39,878 children were victims of violent crime. This shows how unsafe South Africa is for children.
The report is anchored by the five key challenges identified as early as 2020, and these continue to be the monkey on the back of our society. The challenges — child poverty, child health and nutrition, education, housing, and household and child safety — all have a human rights link. As varied as these challenges are, they require us to accept that it cannot be business as usual.
On child safety, the report, highlighting statistics from 2021, shows that 1,188 children were murdered and that there were sexual offences against 24,000 children. Department of social development data cited in the report show there were 17,488 cases of child abuse and neglect, mostly in the Western Cape.
More disappointingly, there is still rampant sexual abuse of children, with one out of five abused in 2021. In the same period, more than three children were murdered daily in South Africa over 90 days between October and December 2022.
Furthermore, in terms of abuse at schools, corporal punishment still ranks high at a shocking 84%, and this is at the hands of teachers. The harassment, intimidation, bullying and abuse our children are subjected to at the hands of adults, the same people that are meant to care for them, should be something we make noise about until violence against children is eradicated.
Our collective responsibility is shown to be wanting when children are not safe at home, in their communities, at school, or in places of safety or play. This then begs the question: where exactly are children safe? Why are we not ensuring this safety? Who do we expect to ensure that safety on our behalf? What does a safe environment look like for children in the next three decades? Are we looking at a better or worse South Africa?
It cannot be that in the coming years we will still be trying to create safe places for children in communities that harbour human traffickers, abusers, killers, paedophiles and abusers. Something has to change as a matter of urgency.
Indeed, as we battle to answer these questions, we should look at the latest tragedy and agree that a better, safer South Africa is the ideal we all seek for our children.
In 30 years, Joshlin Smith should be a 36-yearold adult. Yet we are showing her fellow six-yearolds that it is unsafe for them out there and that they could disappear before their next birthday.
The state of the children report calls for action because challenges such as child safety require more than just speaking and holding talkshows. As the NMCF, we will always call on all parties to get involved to ensure better protection for our children. Meaningful outcomes are sought and can only be attained when all we stakeholders intentionally create safe spaces for children.
This intentional focus, which we should achieve as fast as we can considering that we have lost so much in the past three decades, should propel us to say the current environment where our children hog headlines as they go missing is not a South Africa with which we want to be associated. A country where children are not found or are maimed, raped, abused, not looked after or denied education cannot be what we call a South Africa to be proud of.
Child safety and protection are the responsibilities of every adult, and such protection cannot be overstated.
If we continue to fail to emphasise the need to protect against abuse (physical, emotional or sexual), neglect and exploitation (be it sexual grooming, labour, or being used for criminal activities), our children will continue to be vulnerable and open to harm, with enduring repercussions on their physical and mental wellbeing, education and prospects.
These are the same children that we expect will one day create safe homes, communities and societies, when we have not shown them what safety looks like. As South Africa looks forward to its seventh administration, we must push harder to make children’s matters the priority and purview of the president’s desk.
We need to realise that the most precious humans of our population are vulnerable daily; we are doing poorly in safeguarding their safety and reassuring them that it’s OK to be a child in South Africa and do what children must do.
We need to build a South Africa in which we fully recognise that there can be no human rights without children’s rights.