HEIDI HOLLAND

Young hearts need hope now

The Children’s Act is a milestone in our quest for happier, healthier kids. But it is not enough, not by a long shot

 

A controversial but vital piece of legislation, the Children’s Act, is due to be implemented over the next few weeks. Much depends on its success, say professionals working in the field of child survival and development. “South Africa faces numerous overdue challenges,” warns child rights fundi Carol Bower, “but none is more urgent than giving hope to our many children who have no sense of a future.”
A carefully-honed framework of how a better life for kids can be achieved, the Children’s Act is reckoned to be the best weapon South Africa has in the fight against deprivation. “The public unfortunately objected to various of its provisions because they had a superficial understanding of government’s intention,” explains Bower of the decade-long delay in the legislation’s implementation. “Because the Children’s Act in its original form tried to ban corporal punishment in the home, for example, people focused on what they thought was government telling them what to do in their private lives. Similarly, the outcry over virginity testing was thought to be government interfering with custom. In fact, the state is forthrightly supporting the rights of children and therefore the rights of the family. It is a marvellous document.”
With its emphasis on preventing kids from becoming vulnerable in the first place, the Children’s Act unblinkingly confronts some of the tragic realities of South African childhood. For example, 14-million children take turns to eat, according to Bower – “not on the basis of I eat breakfast and you eat lunch, but I eat today and you eat tomorrow”. Facing up to such alarming statistics by providing disadvantaged children with dietary supplements - as the legislation recommends - makes more sense than dealing down the line with the stunted growth of our next generation.
The act tackles numerous social problems which, for a variety of historical reasons, are particularly pronounced in South Africa.  Many boys don’t have good role models, for instance. They don’t know how to be good men or good fathers, or how to be in good relationships. There is in general too little parental authority in South Africa’s homes, for that matter. Mothers, whose own lives are complex and difficult, simply don’t know what their kids are doing all day. To fill these gaps, a range of supervised or trained community support systems have been expertly identified in the far-reaching legislation.
The Children’s Act provides a brave blueprint for action against child abuse in its many forms. It makes adults of 18-year-olds and strengthens their position in all facets of society. Some kids currently spend a year or more in prison because their parents can’t post bail, for instance. Others have been prejudiced by the hitherto unrecognized rights of unmarried fathers.
There is an entire section in the Children’s Act on kids most affected by HIV/Aids, especially those living in child-headed households. 15-year-olds who are taking care of younger siblings need more than volunteer support structures to cope with their burdens on a daily basis. They have to learn to budget, to shop and to eat healthily while still going to school every morning. The parentless family must be supported in order to stay together because, even in circumstances of acute poverty, there is evidence of better child survival and development in the original family environment than in situations where siblings are separated.
When you look at the scope and intent of the Children’s Act, you get a real sense of the despair suffered by a large proportion of our kids, as well as realizing how deeply we should be worrying as a society about their misery (even if we haven’t quite got around to joining up the dots linking disaffected youth to the unstoppable crime that plagues us constantly).
By no means all of the Aids orphans taken in by the extended family are treated fairly: studies show that thousands are exploited for their labour while many others are sexually abused. Controversially, the new legislation allows kids over 12 access to HIV testing and contraceptives without parental consent, partly because the Children’s Act acknowledges the disturbingly high incidence of sexual abuse taking place in the intra-familial context.
Furthermore, traditional inheritance practices often make it difficult for orphaned children to stay in the deceased mother’s home. Related problems, such as the child’s right not only to prepare for a sick mother’s death but to mourn her passing, are all too often overlooked in the cruel haste with which kids are kicked out of the home by greedy relatives.
While we have been warned for years that untold numbers of psychologically troubled children are going to be strutting their destructive stuff in the wake of HIV/Aids, the Children’s Act has been a decade in the making – ten critical years during which prospects for South African kids, especially in terms of a failing education system, have deteriorated. The situation for today’s ill-educated school leavers is made worse by the disastrous, albeit unintended, consequences of post-apartheid labour laws that effectively discourage businesses from employing unskilled people without work records.
Although it will soon be possible to tackle many of these crime-enhancing issues through the inter-sectoral interventions identified in the Children’s Act, the ultimate challenge to the wellbeing of future generation’s remains the government’s oft-lamented capacity (or rather incapacity) problems. Leaving aside the state’s inability to spend money once it has been allocated, 19 000 additional social workers are needed to implement the Children’s Act even at its lowest level - although the legislation does now widen the range of existing social work professionals who can become involved in countrywide child rescue efforts.
What every child care professional recommends as the basis for a successful childhood is obvious enough: a home not riddled with violence, and a decent education. But we are still so frighteningly far from achieving these crucial goals in South Africa that the Children’s Act - as important a milestone as it undoubtedly is in our quest for happier, healthier kids – is just not enough. We need hope in young hearts as a national priority – now now – regardless of what the hell (or heaven) it takes in political will, resources and imagination.