The Portfolio Committee on Women, Children and People with Disabilities – in its efforts to highlight the need for activism in relations to the fight against violence on women and children – had dialogues with children in their various constituencies in provinces such as Gauteng, Free State, Mpumalanga and Eastern Cape.
The dialogues with children formed part of the Committee’s programme to create opportunities for public participation with civil society and communities in general on key matters pertaining to the Committee’s target groups, in this case children. The engagement provided not only a platform for children to interact with Members of Parliament within their community but also as a means for meaningful child participation which enabled the children to identify key challenges they are faced with within their communities.
The dialogue also empowered MPs with useful information which could be followed up as they perform their Constitutional obligation of oversight. Moreover, these dialogues were also utilised to inform and educate children about the role of the Committee and Parliament at large and formed part of the vision of being an activist Parliament. “Children are a powerful source of information.
These dialogues have shown that children must be acknowledged as agents of change. Similarly, this is one of the mechanisms the Committee views as part of an Activist Parliament”, the Chairperson of the Portfolio Committee, Mrs Dorothy Ramodibe said.
The issues raised by the children were consistent across the country in terms of the interplay between violence, drug abuse, poverty, teenage pregnancy, corporal punishment at home, inadequate parenting, abuse of grants received from the State, mistrust of educators, suicide and depression, alleged corruption in the police force and poor living conditions exacerbate poor quality of life for children and negatively impact on their wellbeing.
The Committee was outraged that while these engagements were continuing, news broke that an innocent six weeks old baby girl had been brutally raped in Kimberley. Sexual abuse such as suffered by the young girl in Kimberley is a daily reality for many young girls in South Africa. Some of the important issues that came up that the Committee will look at engaging the Executive in order to improve the life of a South African child include, ensuring that government funded programmes aimed at children are implemented effectively, ensuring a safe environment at school as this is where children spend most of their time.
The Committee also believes that the South African Police Service and other law enforcement agencies are central in ensuring that children are and feel safe. To this end, all law enforcement agencies must come up with strategies that will ensure that the community, including children, regain full trust in their services to ensure that they are able to approach the agencies to report cases of abuse.
The Committee further believes that this engagement revealed invaluable insight into the lives of children living in South Africa, and it will enable the Committee to push the Executive and the whole country in creating an environment conducive for the children of South Africa. The Committee supports the ongoing 16 Days of No Violence Against Women and Children, and hope that the campaign is a starting point of a year-long campaign to end abuse on women and children. The Committee will continue with its work of ensuring that issues and recommendations that emerged from engagement with children in the country and similar challenges are resolved.
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