The Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Social Development was on August 5 briefed by the Department of Social Development on the Children’s Amendment Bill (Bill 13 of 2015) and the Children’s Second Amendment Bill (Bill 14 of 2015).
Among other proposals, the Children’s Amendment Bill seeks to introduce the definition of ‘sexual offence’ as a way of aligning the Children’s Act with the Sexual Offences Act.
The Bill also proposes creating a ‘deeming’ provision in the Children’s Act that makes it easier to find adult offenders unsuitable to work with children. Currently, a finding that a person is unsuitable to work with children is not dependent upon a finding of guilt or innocence in the criminal trial of the person.
The Portfolio Committee was also briefed on the Children’s Second Amendment Bill which, amongst others, proposes the extension of the definition of ‘adoption social worker’ to include social workers in the employ of government in order to enable them to process adoptions as opposed to these being done only by adoption agencies.
Through the extension of the definition of ‘adoption social worker’ the department seeks to address the issue of the inaccessibility of the service. Government is concerned about the reported exorbitant fees charged by some adoption agencies as this is a barrier for many prospective adoptive parents.
Opening the rendering of the service to social workers in the employ of government effectively makes the service available to the public at no cost and will most probably increase adoption rates in the country.
While welcoming the amendments, the Portfolio Committee has requested the Department of Social Development to look into the matter of increasing the number of social workers in the public service in order to create capacity to handle this extra work.
Social work has been declared a scarce skill in South Africa and the insufficient numbers of available social workers has made it difficult to deliver social services where they are needed.
The National Development Plan further indicates that 55 000 social service professionals will be needed by 2030 to serve our population. To this end, the Portfolio Committee has urged the department to continue making a case to the National Treasury for funds to recruit more social workers.
The Bills were tabled on May 20, 2015, to both Houses of Parliament by Minister of Social Development, Ms Bathabile Dlamini. Once passed by the National Assembly, the Bills will be referred to the National Council of Provinces (NCOP) for further consideration.
Public hearings are expected to take place in the near future to allow South Africans to have their say on the proposed amendments.
Media inquiries to:
Lumka Oliphant
Cell: 083 484 8067
E-mail: lumkao@dsd.gov.za
