Niki Moore
‘Politicians have forgotten what it is like to be hungry.” These are the words of 12-year-old Mbali from a poor KwaZulu-Natal South Coast family.
Although Mbali comes from a poor family she does not qualify for a child support grant because she is above the cut-off age of seven. She has four brothers and sisters and her parents are unemployed. The rural family ekes out a living through odd jobs and selling bits and pieces.
But Mbali is still one of the fortunate ones she still has her parents. About 500 000 children have lost one or both parents to Aids. According to a UNAids report, 7% of all children in Sub-Saharan Africa are living in child-headed households.
In South Africa this translates to about 80 000 families where both breadwinners have passed away and the only means of support for the children are friends, neighbours and extended families.
The R110-a-month child support grant is not enough for households headed by Aids orphans.
These stark realities and challenges faced by thousands of South African children emerged at an open day in Durban recently, organised by Children First a loose coalition of NGOs that are concerned with the rights of children.
Pan Africanist Congress MP Patricia de Lille, who opened the proceedings, said: “We have the most progressive Constitution in the world. But these rights are just paper rights The Constitution promises that children have the right to basic care. But every year millions of rands are unspent by the welfare department. Every day millions of rands are stolen by corrupt officials. And every minute that passes, we are paying more for a proposed arms purchase of nearly R50-billion.”
According to Shirin Motala, spokesperson for the Alliance for Children’s Entitlement to Social Security (Acess), close to 70% of South African children live in extreme poverty and are in desperate need of social security.
Motala said one of the requirements for children to qualify for the monthly support grant is the availability of a birth certificate and half of South Africa’s children living in the rural areas do not have one. The process of acquiring a birth certificate for people who live far away from public amenities is costly.
However, activists for children’s rights are trying to change this.
Acess represents a large coalition of NGOs in the children’s sector and it is advocating a basic income grant for all children up to the age of 18.
Acess exhibited a stand at the open day and displayed the amount of groceries that can be purchased from the R110 monthly grant. The little heap was pitiful: a small packet of sugar, beans, salt, mielie-meal, powdered milk, a brick of margarine, a loaf of bread, a jar of peanut butter, four small tins of pilchards, a packet of soy mince, one apple, orange, onion and a potato.
The Vitamin Information Centre Study, published as a supplement in the April edition of the South African Medical Journal, reveals that one in five South African children is stunted due to undernourishment and malnutrition and that one in every four households in the country experiences hunger and food insecurity.
Motala says: “Children can’t wait. Malnutrition and stunting in early life has irreversible impacts by lowering immunity, making children more prone to disease and it affects school performance. Our high infant mortality rate makes South Africa one of the 12 most lethal societies in the world for children.”
However, Motala acknowledges that an ideal child support programme would come at huge cost to the state. “Acess believes we have both a moral and an economic imperative to spend wisely on social security”.
Acess has made submissions to the Committee of Inquiry into a Comprehensive Social Security System for South Africa, commissioned by the government through the Department of Social Development. The report will be presented to the government within a month.