Programme director,
Director-General – Dr Nonhlanhla Mkhize
Representatives of Chapter 9 Institutions
Delegates from National and Provincial Government Departments including Provincial Offices on the Rights of the Child
Representatives of Local and District Municipalities
Children’s Rights Experts
And representatives of Children’s rights groups
United Nations Agencies and development partners present
Good morning to all of you.
It is indeed a great pleasure to be meeting different stakeholders within the Children’s Rights Sector today. I wish to express my gratitude to government departments at the three spheres, organs of civil society, academic institutions, UN Agencies and other development partners for joining us this morning. Thank you for your continued collaboration with us as we work towards the realisation of the rights of children of South Africa.
We should hold these meetings regularly to ensure that walk this path together. We need to engage and agree on a common direction we need to take to protect and promote the rights of children as country.
Today we are also observing International Child Labour Day, 4 April. Government supports the International Labour Organisation’s efforts to end Child Labour practice and to call for decisive action by governments and stakeholders around the world.
The Basic Conditions of Employment Act makes it a criminal offence to employ a child younger than 15 years. Children aged 15 to 18 years may also not be employed to do work inappropriate for their age, or work that places them at risk. According to the Department of Labour, the largest sector for child labour practices was agriculture, where most of these children work as unpaid family members.
The Ministry for Women, Children and People with Disabilities has focused mainly on the plight of unaccompanied migrant children in Musina area. In a project implemented by Save the Children (with R2,25 million funding from Italian government) various interventions are being implemented to protect children.
The project ensures that:
- Unaccompanied migrant children are registered, access temporary shelter and receive assistance, support and advice on repatriation, reunification and integration.
- Local communities are informed and empowered to react to the risks and they assist in identifying, referring and supporting unaccompanied migrant children.
- Information on unaccompanied children is registered, tracked and managed to inform planning and response.
- Data about the children on the move is captured onto the Identification, Tracking and Reunification information system and made available to all relevant stakeholders and interested parties.
- A functioning referral system for unaccompanied migrant children is implemented with the aim of reuniting children with their families.
The Ministry urges communities to report cases of child labour to the nearest authorities as this constitute abuse of children.
Our core-function as the department is the mainstreaming of gender, disability and children’s rights consideration into all programmes of government and the rest of society. We define mainstreaming as a strategy for making concerns and experiences of women, children and persons with disabilities an integral dimension of the policies and programmes in all political, economic and social spheres so that these three groups benefit equally as the rest of the population and inequality is not perpetuated.
Our department is responsible for monitoring and evaluating that the rights of these groups are protected and promoted. We are responsible for advocacy and coordination of programmes for protection and promotion of rights of the three groups.
The output of this mainstreaming function is prioritization of the interest of women, children and persons with disabilities in all development programmes in the country. Where there are gaps in the realisation of rights of these groups, we need to advocate and lead the initiation of appropriate interventions.
The Director-General will present the strategic plan of the department outlining how we seek to implement this mandate and we will very much appreciate your inputs.
I would like to urge all of you to support us as we build institutional capacity and mobilise for more resources to be allocated to achieve the objectives of this Ministry. Although our national gender, child rights and disability machineries are globally acknowledged as some of the most advanced machineries, lack of financial and human resources limited them from achieving the original objective of truly transforming the lives of women, children and people with disabilities. That is the challenge we are trying to address currently.
In this regard, I am glad to announce the appointment of Mr Mzolisi Toni as the Deputy Director-General of Children’s Rights and People with Disabilities Branch of the department. The process is underway to select and appoint the various levels of professionals we need to achieve our mandate.
Programme director, the meeting today will also discuss the implementation of two very important pieces of legislation on the well-being of children. The Children’s Act and Child Justice Act came into effect in April last year, ushering in a new dispensation in the protection and promotion of rights of children in South Africa.
The Children’s Act requires all spheres of government to implement the Act in a coordinated manner to maximise the impact of available resources. It provides for protection of various rights of children and obliges government to ensure substantive equality and equal access to services for children with disabilities and chronic illnesses.
As the department, we have engaged with the Act particularly with regard to the protection of children from abuse. During the 16 Days of Activism Campaign on No Violence against Women and Children, we made efforts to highlight the legal requirement for reporting of incidents of child abuse. We will be integrating this message and other provisions of the Act as we implement the 365 Action Plan to end violence against women and children.
We are encouraged by the provisions on the National Child Protection Register aimed at ensuring better management of child abuse cases and ensuring that people who harm children are prevented from being able to work with children.
Programme director, the department participated in the launch of Child Justice Act which puts South Africa in line with the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. Article 40 of the UN Convention states that children who are accused of breaking the law have the right to a fair treatment in a justice system that respects their rights.
Furthermore, Article 37 prohibits punishment that is cruel or harmful to children. For instance, it states that children should not be put in prison with adults and should not be sentenced to death or life imprisonment without possibility of release.
The diversion of minor offences and restorative justice approach taken by the Child Justice Act provides a better option for dealing with children in conflict with the law and is in line with the spirit of Article 37 of the UN Convention. International experience suggests that diversion can prevent stigmatisation and lead to good outcomes for children and public safety. Restorative justice options have also proven to be more effective that “retributive” approaches, which are concerned purely with punishing the offender.
We have noted the decrease in the number of children channelled through the criminal justice system as a result of implementation of this Act. The average number of remand detainee (awaiting trial) children in the Correctional Services facilities decreased from 500 when the Act commenced in April 2010, to less than 300 in December 2010. Most of these 300 children were awaiting trial for serious and violent crimes.
Programme director, I would like to encourage all of you to continue you active participation at the National Children’s Rights Advisory Council. This Council was established to provide technical support and be a coordinating platform for the implementation of the National Programme of Action for Children. It is an important platform for collaboration to deal with children rights’ issues which are mostly cross-cutting in nature.
We need to work together as various spheres of government, civil society, research institutions and development partners towards the realisation of rights of all our children. As department, we will do our part to ensure that these engagements takes place regularly and they guide our country on issues of the rights of the child.
Thank you.
