Cape Town | Wednesday
CHILDREN from across South Africa gathered in Cape Town on Tuesday to speak out on their experiences of poverty ahead of Budget day.
”In our area there are many children suffering, including us,” a girl from Cape Town’s Samora Machel informal settlement told a public hearing organised by the Alliance for Children’s Entitlement to Social Security (Access).
”We go to the school every morning on an empty stomach. Other children choose not to go to school and stand at the side of the road begging for money.”
The youngsters were brought to Cape Town to share the results of workshops held in the nine provinces by the alliance last year, and to back its call for a social security system that takes account of their needs.
The hearings, at a venue only a stone’s throw away from Parliament, were attended by MPs, representatives of government departments and NGOs, and, briefly, by Education Minister Kader Asmal.
Access says that with 22-million South Africans living on less than R144 a month, three in every four children experience poverty, and one in four is stunted by malnutrition.
”We would like the social security net to be tightened because at the moment there are too many gaps and too many children falling through,” said an Access representative, Gail Smith.
She said a major problem was that children over the age of seven did not qualify for the government’s child support grant.
”Basically, children from six to 18 fall completely through they get nothing,” she said.
However there were ”murmurings” that Finance Minister Trevor Manuel might announce concessions in Wednesday’s Budget.
Access says there are also problems with the disability grant which goes only to children with severe permanent disability and who are permanently cared for at home.
It says there is a range of children with less severe disabilities, as well as those with diseases such as cancer, epilepsy and Aids, who miss out, as well as those who go to day care centres while a parent works.
The children at Tuesday’s hearings, most of whose identities were withheld for fear of discrimination or victimisation in their communities, spoke out about youngsters from poverty-stricken families having to work after school instead of doing homework.
They described the indignity of being kept back a standard because they were unable to pay school fees, or humiliated and excluded at school because they could not afford uniforms.
They spoke of the problems of broken families, alcohol and drug abuse, and sexual abuse.
Street children spoke of the difficulty of getting birth certificates.
”When you go to get a birth certificate they don’t give it to you, but when you die you’ll get a death certificate,” said one.
There was also a focus on the problems facing disabled children.
”The community that is teasing us, we don’t like it,” said a teenage girl with crippled legs. ”There must be an awareness, like HIV, so people know that people with disabilities exist. They are here to stay. They are citizens of South Africa.”
To coincide with the hearing, Access released a report saying that the issues raised by the children had to be addressed with urgency, ”especially if we take cognisance of the fact that the HIV/Aids epidemic will increase tenfold the number of vulnerable children in our society.
”There is a need for urgent and prompt attention now.”
The report said participation by children should be integral to policy development, and any debates on the report of the committee of inquiry into a social welfare system now before Cabinet should take this into account.
”Politicians and government officials thus far have given low political priority to children’s participation — despite the fact that children constitute approximately half of South Africa’s citizens.
”Children have a right to participate in decisions that will shape their future,” the report said.
”They know what the solutions are: give them a chance to speak,” added Teresa Guthrie, of the University of Cape Town’s Children’s Institute.
”They are powerful advocacy tools for bringing about change in our world.” – Sapa