The Johannesburg Child
Advocacy Forum faced some tough challenges in 2013. The number of children’s
rights violations brought to the attention of the Forum either as individual
cases or as concerns by member organizations struggling to attend to children’s
needs in their separate capacities, was simply overwhelming. The capacity to deal with so many children’s
issues, all requiring urgent attention, is limited, and with emotions running
high, it has been very difficult to prioritize areas of concern in which some
form of advocacy intervention could have a reasonable level of impact.
An analysis of the Forum’s
journal entries, conducted by Red Cherry Research at the end of the year,
revealed that there were 218 case work related entries of which 61% were complex
child abuse cases, most of these sexual abuse cases in the six to eight year
old cohort. Other cases relate mainly to children in need of care who because
of the disability or severe behavioural problems are particularly hard to
place. More than half of these cases were managed by the founding organizations
and or other close NGO partners.
A number of activities
revolved around the implementation or development of child protection policies,
ranging from the development of safety policy at local schools to campaigning
(with other organization) at the level of national policy.
Press releases were made
about specific cases of child abuse, shaken baby syndrome and male survivors of
sexual abuse. This involved articles in the print media as well as participation
in discussions on radio and television stations.
Advocacy processes are by
nature long-term and their impact is dependent on a number of external
variables, most notably the absence or presence of political will to make
things happen. It is difficult to attribute to success or failure of an effort
to any one intervention, group, or set of circumstances. With this in mind, we
are however proud to have contributed to some important changes or improvements
in policy, practice and/or in the practical everyday realities of children:
o
After
years of campaigning for the closure of the Central Methodist Church as an
illegal shelter where hundreds of women and children have been subjected to
violence and abuse, the church is still open. However, it has lost its allure
as the only viable sanctuary for Zimbabwean migrants, and even the women who
could never conceive of making a life for themselves outside of the
“protection” of the cult-like figure head, are now moving out with their
children. Latest news is that the building will be closed by the end of the
year
o
One
illegal shelter into which families were encouraged to “abandon” their children
for a fee, has been successfully closed down, and the children have been
reunited with their caregivers
o
The
Department of Social Development has committed itself to closing the crèche in
the basement of the church, where babies are being exposed to highly unhygienic
risks (raw sewage, no ventilation etc.) and finding alternative care of the
children
o
Children
who have suffered severe trauma as a result of sexual or other violence now
cannot be denied immediate access to therapy on the grounds that such therapy
would contaminate their evidence in court. This is an important court ruling
which civil society organization, including JCAF campaigned for after a
severely traumatized child was denied therapy for years while the court case
against the alleged perpetrator dragged on.
o
Luke
Lamprecht, the convenor of JCAF, has been actively involved in convening a
successful conference on the “Back to Basics” of child protection which was
attended by hundreds of social workers and others working on the coal face of
child protection
o
Johanna
Kistner has set new standards for the assessment of juvenile offenders after
spending time with seven boys accused of raping a mentally disabled girl. In
the context of extreme poverty and generalized family and community
dysfunction, she raised the question in her report about “who is to be held
accountable for the behaviour of our children.” She has since been asked to
join the Legal Aid SA’s panel of experts
o When a 11 year refugee old girl was refused
treatment for epilepsy at the Johannesburg Hospital because she could not pay
the R20 000 demanded by the hospital clerks and nursing staff, the senior medical
staff to whom the matter was reported were so outraged that they organized
themselves in protest and undertook to take the matter to the Human Right
Commission. The child was eventually seen and provided with treatment free of
charge as is her constitutional right. However, the matter of refugees being
expected to pay outrageous amounts for access to health care is an issue we
continue to fight with other organizations, including Section 27, a powerful
advocacy organization that has already taken the state to court on a number of
violations of constitutional rights.
A tough internal reflection
and interrogation process among the founder members has set the agenda for more
coordinated and selective approach to advocacy based on the priority areas of access
to health, education and child protection services. We hope that this will be
more effective in focusing limited human and financial resources on where we
can realistically achieve the greatest impact.
A LOSS OF INNOCENCE
At a recent JCAF meeting, the
convenor, Luke Lamprecht used the term “loss of innocence” to capture the
feelings of service providers in the current political and economic climate. We
can, as counsellors, social workers, therapists, and community workers no
longer draw on the assumption that the political and economic elites and
decision-makers of our time, as well as their implementers lower down on the
ranking scales of power, have the best interests of the most vulnerable and
marginalized citizens at heart. Every attempt to get even the most basic
(constitutionally mandated) services for our clients requires a massive amount
of persuasive energy, threats of legal action, and even aggression, often with
little or no results.
Nowhere is the loss on innocence more visible than on the streets of our
city, in its overcrowded inner city dwellings, in the match box houses of the
townships, and the crude shacks on abandoned pieces of ground. We started this
report in a state of mourning, for Madiba, but more importantly for the many
lives senselessly lost because of the lack of care and respect for children and
other marginalized groups in our society.
In the week it has taken to complete this report a six year old child
was killed by two eight year old school mates at break at a local primary
school. Two teenage girls were found murdered in the veld, also in Soweto, and
the boys arrested for their murder are a mere 16 years old. Twenty seven
illegal miners, mostly desperate Zimbabweans died of carbon dioxide poisoning
last Monday, after spending days underground in an abandoned mine shaft in
Roodepoort, searching the morsels of gold left behind by the big mining
companies. The authorities left it to the surviving miners and their relatives
to extract the bodies as the rescue mission was deemed too dangerous.
Let us not forget that Nelson Mandela was not always an old man with an
endearing smile and the serenity of forgiveness in his eyes. He was also once
an angry youth, a professional outraged at the injustices of his time, an
activist with fire in his heart. It is now for us to carry the flame forward in
honour of those whose greatness died before it could be given credence, and
even more importantly in celebration of the greatness, bursting to unfold, in
each person, no matter how poor or vulnerable or marginalized or forgotten.
Only then can we hope to recover our lost innocence.
