Durban — The Children’s Institute at UCT has urged Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana, when he delivers the Budget speech next week, to honour the recommendations of the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) to fulfil the international and constitutional rights of children.
The committee included these recommendations in its concluding observations issued earlier this month following its meeting in Geneva with a South African government delegation to discuss progress in improving the lives of children in South Africa.
Spokesperson for the Children’s Institute Leanne Jansen-Thomas said that the institute was encouraged by the many recommendations the UNCRC had made across a broad range of topics.
“The Children’s Institute (University of Cape Town) drew the committee’s attention to several urgent challenges, including the need for the government to budget in a way that prioritises the development and well-being of children.
“In its recommendations, the committee states that South Africa should allocate adequate budgetary resources, under article 4 of the convention, for the implementation of children’s rights, in particular the social sectors, and to ensure that the sectors relevant to children’s rights are not affected by inflation, budget cuts or adverse economic conditions.”
She said the government was currently not doing enough to prioritise children, adding that the Children’s Institute had previously warned that recent budget decisions by the government have a negative impact on children.
“These include the annual inflation increases to the Child Support Grant (CSG) that are too small to prevent the value of the CSG from shrinking compared to rising food prices.
“Cuts to the health budget are resulting in the freezing of posts for health workers, and compromising children’s access to healthcare services. Non-profit organisations (NPOs) that provide child protection services are facing closure because provincial departments of social development are cutting NPO subsidies or withdrawing them completely.”
Jansen-Thomas said the UN committee emphasises that the government should take urgent measures to improve the realisation of children’s rights in particular areas.
“The topics and recommendations include the principle that the best interests of the child should be appropriately integrated with all decisions that impact children, including decisions on resource allocation that are made by the economic sector. To address child hunger, the government should allocate adequate resources to the social assistance programme and health services.
“The government should address the unequal allocation of resources between rural and urban areas and the ‘underfunding’ of protection programmes, the committee says. The committee calls on South Africa to allocate enough resources for programmes and initiatives aimed at protecting children from all forms of violence, abuse and neglect,” she said.
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