A leading children’s rights organisation is concerned that two proposed laws on child protection could result in duplication and a waste of resources.
”Some of the provisions contained in [earlier drafts of] the Children’s Bill and the Sexual Offences Bill have also been watered down and even omitted,” said Joan van Niekerk, co-ordinator of Childline South Africa.
A child’s general right to health care has been reduced in the Children’s Bill, and the right to health care after sexual assault has been removed from the Sexual Offences Bill.
Van Niekerk said this was an ”unfortunate” development, as child victims of sexual assault were especially vulnerable to injury and infection.
She said it appeared there was not enough consultation between the Departments of Social Development and Justice, responsible for the Children’s Bill and the Sexual Offences Bill respectively.
Both bills were expected to be adopted by Parliament this year. Van Niekerk said that without adequate inter-sectoral co-operation, the likelihood of successful implementation of the bills was poor.
One of government’s key aims — the establishment of a child protection register (CPR) — in strengthening the law for the protection of children has also come under fire. Some aspects of the CPR are duplicated in the two draft bills.
Stephane Scholtz, a Department of Social Development director dealing with the register, said the department was currently introducing a computerised CPR nationally.
At present, seven provinces had the computerised system installed with the Eastern Cape developing its own information management system.
”The server is not linked to the national server. The data is, however, being captured onto a CPR hard drive,” said Scholtz. She said the North West was also not linked to the national server because of office relocations, with KwaZulu-Natal so far implementing the CPR in one region only.
The register captures reports of a wide range of child abuse cases, such as emotional, physical and sexual abuse.
”The CPR will ultimately capture all child abuse notifications, monitor each case and contain information on the outcomes of the children’s court cases and the convictions of offenders,” said
Scholtz.
She said the purpose of the CPR in the current Child Care Act and the proposed Children’s Bill was to record circumstances surrounding abuse or deliberate neglect of children, determine patterns and trends of abuse and to share information between professionals in child protection.
Scholtz said the Children’s Bill also provided for a record to be kept of persons unsuitable to work with children, in order to protect children from abuse by such persons.
This was similar to the Sexual Offences Bill provision for a sex offender register.
However, Van Niekerk said neither register guaranteed that sensitive information about children was kept confidential. For example, a software technician setting up the service could read sensitive details.
”In both sets of provisions there is also a problem in that while a person is awaiting the outcome of an appeal or review, their name does not appear on the register,” said Van Niekerk.
She proposed temporary registration pending the outcome of an appeal, particularly because these processes took so long, giving offenders ample time to approach children.
Van Niekerk said the register did not record those offenders — usually children — who accepted alternatives to criminal trials.
”It is essential that all adult offenders are also included on a register,” she said.
Van Niekerk raised concerns over the process of removing the names of offenders from the register, recommending more involvement from professionals, such as social workers, in making final decisions.
Besides the perceived deficiencies on a policy level, experience shows the CPR could have operational difficulties.
In the Western Cape, the roll-out of the computerised CPR has only taken place at two district offices out of 16 districts in the region.
Western Cape social development spokesperson Lindiz van Zilla said that roll-out was slow because they needed to go ”on-line nationally in an even and co-ordinated manner”.
He said that while the province had enough social workers, they still had to be trained in the computerised system.
Van Zilla said the province had not begun logging new cases on computer, but was still clearing backlogs, a task that should be complete by May 31.
He said of the 4 000 cases already logged, most were cases of physical or sexual abuse and perpetrated by somebody known to the victim, such as a family member or friend.
Scholtz agreed that the reporting of child abuse cases to the CPR was ”very slow”, with provincial departments having a backlog of thousands of cases.
”The impact of HIV/Aids in society and the increasing awareness of communities on the matter could increase the number of child abuse cases [reported],” she said. — Sapa