Office on the Rights of the Child Annual Report 2005/06 briefing

Meeting report

JOINT MONITORING COMMITTEE ON IMPROVEMENT OF QUALITY OF LIFE AND STATUS OF CHILDREN, YOUTH AND DISABLED PERSONS.
15 June 2007
OFFICE ON THE RIGHTS OF THE CHILD ANNUAL REPORT 2005/06 BRIEFING

Chairperson: Ms W Newhoudt-Druchen (ANC)

Documents handed out:
Committee Annual Report January-November 2006 [avaialable at Committee Reports]
Office on the Rights of the Child – Year End Performance Report 2006-2007
Children’s Rights Delivery Guide for Municipalities
National Children’s Rights Programme: 3Yr Sectoral Strategy Plan 2004/2005 – 2009/2010
National Children’s Rights Programme: ORC Strategic Thrust 2004/2005 – 2009/201

Audio Recording of the Meeting Part1 and Part2

SUMMARY
The Office on the Rights of the Child briefed the Committee on its performance report for 2006/2007. It tabled the guiding documents for the Municipalities and two of its strategies. The Committee raised concerns on operational aspects of the office such as the capacity to deliver, nature of data and information collection, the involvement of other agencies such as Statistics SA and Home Affairs and the content of Office reports to the United Nations. In relation to the children, they queried the Office’s involvement in the disabled children’s sector, the child-headed household, security of the playing areas, access to social workers in school context and other matters. The Office requested the Committee to invite other departments to address the Committee on matters directly relevant to them. They also invited the Committee’s assistance in setting up an Office in Gauteng in order to assist them with implementation of their programme in that province.

The Committee adopted the 2006 Annual Report and its Programme for the 2^nd Term of 2007.

MINUTES
The Committee adopted the 2006 Annual Report of the Committee and the Committee’s Programme for the 2^nd Term.

Office on the Rights of the Child: Briefing
Ms Mabel Rantla, Director, Office on the Rights of the Child (ORC) based her presentation on four documents, that detailed the Year End Performance Report 2006-2007, the Children’s Rights Delivery Guide for Municipalities, the National Children’s Rights Programme Sectoral Strategy Plan 2005 to 2010, and the Specific Strategy of the ORC.

The specific strategic objectives of the sector included strengthening of strategic children’s rights management and leadership capabilities, improve management, access and sharing, foster desired citizenship approaches, enhance integrated policy development and facilitate and consolidate children’s rights initiatives. The National Children’s Rights programme was founded on Batho Pele principles. The strategy overview for 2007 – 2010 and performance targets were outlined (see attached documents).

The document tabled on the ORC Strategic Thrust set out the mandate and core functions of the ORC, and an overview of programmes running from 2004. In 2007/08 the strategic objectives would include the strengthening of strategic management, accelerate the enhancement of children’s rights delivery, foster nation building, enhance an integrated service delivery approach and foster national building, while co-ordinating monitoring and evaluating and communicating children’s rights policies and programmes. The strategy would enable the ORC to facilitate sectoral contributions.

The key expenditure for 2006/07 was set out as totalling R2.7 million in three main areas. Institutional challenges were identified as lack of children’s rights point of entry in Gauteng, differential systems across spheres of government, and inadequate awareness in top management. Programme challenges included the number of children living in poverty, violence, child-headed households, street children and those in prison, school based social workers and long distances to nearest schools. The total budget request for the next financial year was R3.8 million.

Discussion
Mr L Nzimande (ANC) commented that there was a need for collaboration between the Office of the Status of Disabled People (OSDP) and ORC for disabled children, because there was very little development in the disability and children’s sector. He requested the Office if the education and advisory council was an intergovernmental initiative or a collaboration between ORC and civil society. He further expressed that it was important to streamline. Furthermore, he wanted to know whether the Office was working with academics in terms of research.

Ms J Chalmers (ANC) requested the Office whether Statistics SA was involved in terms of drawing up databases and surveys needed in the delivery guide for municipalities. She stated that constituency offices could contribute to databases, if there was a small provision for their administrator to assist with data queries. She wanted to know whether it was ORC’s idea to assist municipalities to prioritise drawing from the list. She was also not sure how practical this guideline was and asked whether the information coming back from departments was useful. She requested the Office to provide the contact details of the Eastern Cape Office so she could interact with them.

Ms Rantla informed the Committee that Statistics SA was involved in their surveys. She also clarified that because the delivery guide was a broad document, it was difficult to prioritise but it was also important to see the big picture, which the documents in discussion provided, which also presented what was already happening. She informed the Committee that two reports were due to be sent to the United Nations, and that she would check if they had been sent through.

Mr D Gamede (ANC) expressed that even though the government had good policies and programmes it faced challenges in implementation. He expressed concerns at Ms Rantla’s statement that the office had only four staff members and requested if this was sufficient capacity.

Ms Rantla responded that the challenge ORC faced in terms of resources was to work with what it had and even though the office was understaffed, she stated that the priority was rather with the Provinces and strengthening the offices there.

The Chairperson expressed her concern that the report discussed and the report on the agenda were not the same.

Ms Rantla responded that the letter of request the Office had received asked for a presentation on the documents provided.

The Chairperson queried a point made in the ORC’s presentation that Gauteng had a lack of children’s points of entry, as she had expected it to have been the first province to have a branch of ORC. She asked the Office whether they would need the assistance of the Committee to establish an office there.

Ms Rantla responded that in the case of the Gauteng ORC, a decision was taken by the Executive Council to give the responsibility of children’s rights work to the Department of Social Development. This resulted in a problem between ORC and the Premier’s Office and the location of an office in the province. She informed the Committee that other provinces found it easy, but Gauteng was struggling. ORC would appreciate the Committee’s assistance as it was difficult to implement when such an office was located in a department.

The Chairperson was also interested in school based social workers and asked if social workers needed to be based in schools or in districts. She also queried how the office worked with the South African National AIDS Council (SANAC) in HIV/AIDS matters.

Ms Rantla suggested that perhaps the Committee should insist that every school should have access to a social worker on a daily basis. The logistics could be worked out, but social workers were imperative in the country. She further informed the Committee that that the South African National AIDS Council (SANAC) was represented in the advisory council’s technical teams, and one of them was led by the Department of Social Development. SANAC was constructed because at the General Assembly in 2002 it was agreed that nations would establish interdisciplinary forums to look at HIV/AIDs. SANAC worked closely with ORC.

The Chairperson asked what the Office was doing about ensuring a secure playing environment for children from poor areas who were vulnerable to being electrocuted and falling into manholes. Also she alluded to the fact that there seemed to be no mention of immunisation.

 Ms Rantla said that ORC monitoring and evaluations identified the areas of concern. The office was also looking at the matter of immunisation.

Mr Nzimande asked if the Office’s budget had increased, and if there were any campaigns that were part of National Children’s Day Celebrations.

Ms Rantla responded that there was a budget increase, but she was not able to tell at this point whether the increase in their budget was anything other than the annual increment. In terms of the National Children’s Day celebrations, one of the activities of National Children’s Days Celebration was “taking the girl child to work”. The ORC and the Presidency was encouraging the bringing of a child (boy and/or girl) to work and not just to focus on the girl.

Mr Nzimande referred to the fact that the Children’s Amendment Bill noted that the age for a child to be the head of a Child Headed Household was 15. He requested if there had been any measurement of the impact of this requirement.

Ms Rantla said that the Child Headed Household was one of the key concerns in the ORC. The National Children’s Rights Committee (NCRC), Department of Social Development (DSD) and the Nelson Mandela Children’s Fund had jointly considered an approach to the problem of the Child Headed Household and came up with the plan to reintegrate children into the extended family systems. It was true that the issue of Child Headed Households arose because there was something dysfunctional or wrong in the family. ORC looked at policies such as low cost housing, free education, health care incentives, and initiated processes to tap into those resources to strengthen the extended families to take in children from Child Headed Households. The model had since been revisited and strengthened and therefore looked at those children as well as the street children.

Mr Nzimande urged also that there might be a need for research to be done on access to justice by disabled children, as there were still the challenges of reports not being recognised as sufficient strong by the law.

Ms Rantla said that ORC had not looked at children with disabilities’ access to justice systems, but had taken note of this issue.

Mr Gamede urged the Office that there was a need to add something about Home Affairs into the Municipal Guidelines so that children could be assisted to get birth certificates, so that they could have access to child support grants and employment when they reached the right age.

Ms Chalmers referred to one of the realities in South Africa as the influx of refugees , including children. In Port Elizabeth there were Somalian and Zimbabwean refugees. She asked the ORC if it had a policy position in assisting refugee children in any way, as there was a lot of suffering.

Ms Rantla responded that the SA constitution, the African Union Chapter and the United Nations Convention relating to Refugees indicated that any child in SA at any given time must be assisted to get universal rights. ORC was challenged in that it did not have monitoring systems to be able to identify and assist refugee children. She thanked the Committee for raising this and indicated that ORC would look into it.

Ms Chalmers expressed that though it was great to see the big picture, ORC was actually doing its job in the little picture also. Therefore, she suggested that it might be an idea to give out a report to say how ORC was trying to make a difference in the life of children.

The Chairperson indicated that there was also a need for the Committee to be aware of the contents of and follow up on the Reports the ORC was submitting to the United Nations. Also, there needed to be a list and contact details of the ORC offices in the provinces, so that members could visit them.

The Chairperson invited members to the disability summit on 4 and 5 July 2007 in Sandton.

Ms Rantla requested that the Committee consider the cooperation ORC proposed previously, of inviting various departments to the Committee meetings, to address the issues raised relevant to their mandates.

The Chairperson indicated that the Committee had started to look at these issues and would contact ORC as to what was needed with respect to the other departments, as there were many questions members would like to ask in general.

The meeting was adjourned.