Stuart Hess and Tangeni Amupadhi
RULES governing children’s homes are woefully inadequate, the Minister of Welfare and Population Development, Geraldine Fraser-Moleketi, said this week.
She was responding to inquiries by the Mail & Guardian about the spate of disclosures and criminal trials to do with abuses in child-care homes.
“The cases of molestation, child rape and general abuse of children who are in protected care is a major area of concern,” said Fraser-Moleketi.
“There is a lack of adequate control and supervision especially of unregistered homes,” she said.
The Child Care Act stipulates, she said, that all child-care homes must be registered. “There are, however, instances where groups or individuals establish homes without prior consultation with the Department of Welfare.”
An investigation last August by the Inter- Ministerial Committee on Young People at Risk (IMC) found that only 30% of youth care staff in places of safety are qualified in child and youth care.
The IMC, headed by Fraser-Moleketi, has recommended drawing up an ethical code of conduct for residential care facilities and a strict code of conduct for staff.
Fraser-Moleketi said: “We are in the process of taking our residential care policy further in working towards minimum norms and standards for state institutions as part of the residential care system.”
According to the chief social worker at Gauteng’s Department of Welfare, Annette van Loggerenberg, regional welfare homes “don’t submit inspection reports unless any serious matters arise.
`Homes are then given three to six months to reply or to rectify the problems,” she said.
Cases of child abuse are immediately reported to the police child protection unit, she added.
Although provision is made in the Child Care Act to inspect – and, if necessary, close down – unregistered homes, inspections are only carried out once every three years by provincial welfare departments, said Van Loggerenberg.
Despite the legal provisions and safeguards, even one of the country’s most prominent child-care residences is currently involved in horrifying reports. The Johannesburg Children’s Home in Yeoville has been thrust into the spotlight as a result of criminal charges being brought against a former senior official. James Arthur Frazer was earlier dismissed by the home after allegations that he had raped and molested children in his care.
In an earlier case, in 1993, the founder of the Cape Town City Mission Home for Children, the Reverend Bruce Duncan, was accused of sodomising Raymond Mitchell, a child-care worker, at the home. Later that year Mitchell was sentenced to four months’ imprisonment for indecently assaulting a boy. Duncan fled the country before any charges were brought.
In Durban, Livingstone Jacobs, the founder of the child-care home, Street Children’s Shelter, appeared in court late last month on charges of indecently assaulting several children in his care.
The home was unregistered and was run by the Children’s Rights Ministry, a group headed by Jacobs. The home has since been closed down by the KwaZulu-Natal Social Welfare Department.