Reality betrays ideals of constitution

BIG DAY: On the first day at school a brother and sister wait with other children to be placed into grades at Cosmo Pre-Primary 1 in Cosmo City, Gauteng. Photo: Antoine De Ras

BIG DAY: On the first day at school a brother and sister wait with other children to be placed into grades at Cosmo Pre-Primary 1 in Cosmo City, Gauteng. Photo: Antoine De Ras

Published Mar 14, 2014

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While the democratic constitution protects children’s rights, dire inequality still predetermines the lives of small children in the country.

Policy and constitution

HAILED as one of the most progressive in the world, our post-1994 constitution has, according to experts, actively promoted the rights of children.

Says Linda Biersteker, head of research at the Early Learning Resource Unit, “Policies and frameworks have shifted dramatically since 1994”.

She says there is a recognition of early childhood as a key period for development of human potential, and applauds, for example, the introduction of a reception year (Grade R) and an integrated plan for early childhood development programmes.

She adds, however, that “access without quality is not going to deliver the benefits we seek for children”.

Those in poor communities continue to lag behind in terms of quality services and programmes that should support early childhood development.

Lizette Berry, an expert in social policy, says, “the sentiments of justice and equality for all children have emerged as central themes across a range of sectoral policies”.

But, she says: “While implementation has improved in some sectors and clear progress is evident, certain challenges such as a lack of human resources, insufficient funding, and poor joint planning between duty bearers continue to hamper implementation.”

The 2013 Child Gauge, a collection of reports collated by the Children’s Institute, says that nearly two thirds of South African children still live below the poverty line and that 35 percent lived in households where no adults are employed. This shows an ongoing context of poverty for children: there has only been a small decrease in unemployment since 1994.

Clean water and sanitation

“Access to drinking water by population group still shows huge disparities,” says a report on children released last year by Statistics South Africa.

Over 90 percent of Indian and white households have access to piped water in their homes yet for African children it is as low as 27.1 percent.

“Children in informal settlements and in rural areas are likely to be most disadvantaged. The uneven provision of basic services remains a key concern for the health of young children,” says Berry.

The only two provinces where more than half of the population have access to piped water inside their homes are Gauteng and the Western Cape. In all other provinces, piped water cannot be accessed in the home by more than half of the population.

In 1996, in terms of piped water, children were worst off in the Eastern Cape, KwaZulu-Natal and Limpopo.

Today, children are still worst off in those three provinces, which are characterised by rural livelihoods.

The data also show an improvement in children’s access to sanitation, although “the proportion of children without adequate toilet facilities remains worryingly high”, the report says.

Today, 5.7 million children still use unventilated pit latrines, buckets or open land, and by far the majority of those children are African children.

Michael Hendricks, associate professor in the school of child and adolescent health at UCT, says, “poor access to safe water and sanitation continue to expose children to the risk of diarrhoea and dysentery”.

While statistics on diarrhoea are not available for 1994, the SA Institute of Race Relations (SAIRR) provides data which suggests at least some improvement since 2001, except for the Western Cape where the situation has actually worsened, going up by 8 percent since 2001. In all provinces, over 90 percent of diarrhoea-related deaths in children are among African children.

Health care

“Significant changes have been made in the provision of public health services,” says Berry, adding, “This sector has a strong public infrastructure, enabling regular contact and reach of services to the majority of children, especially during the first three years of life.”

She says the health sector’s greatest success is most likely the reduction of child mortality, the extensive availability of maternal and child health services, and improved take-up of HIV prevention and treatment programmes in recent years.

However, the Child Gauge says that nearly a quarter of children have to travel long distances to reach their nearest health-care facility, while the SAIRR says, “it is observed that the majority of young children from the black African and coloured population groups – 83 percent and 66 percent respectively – live in households that use public hospitals or clinics whereas the majority of those from the Indian/Asian and white population groups mainly use private doctors.”

Nutrition

According to Hendricks, “Malnutrition in South Africa is associated with more than 60 percent of all child deaths in hospitals in South Africa”. And, he says, “high rates of stunting are especially prevalent in children of zero to three years of age”.

While data on child nutrition is somewhat lacking, a comparison between 1993 and 2008 data shows that stunting rates in children under-5 decreased by 5 percent (from 30 to 25) and results from 2012 suggest that this may have reduced further, to 22 percent.

While these improvements are to be lauded, a closer look at the “nutrition gap” echoes the dire inequality that faces children across different socio-economic and racial groupings.

In the last year of apartheid, stunting rates among children from the poorest households were five times higher than the rates recorded amongst children in the wealthiest households. In 2008, the gap had narrowed but stunting rates were still highest in the poorest quintile.

And, while there was a significant drop in reported child hunger, from 30 percent of children in 2002 to 16 percent in 2006, the rate since then has remained fairly consistent, suggesting that despite expansion of social grants, school feeding schemes and other efforts to combat hunger among children, there may be issues which continue to leave households vulnerable to food insecurity.

“A critical area for intervention is ensuring adequate nutrition for mothers during the ante-natal and post-natal period to meet their babes’ nutritional and development needs,” says Hendricks, “because the first 1 000 days (from conception to first birthday) offers a critical window of opportunity to address the nutritional needs of children and enable them to grow into healthy productive adults.”

Safe spaces for children

An aerial view of any city in South Africa reveals a landscape of disparity: green lungs, parks and facilities for children in areas formerly reserved for whites, and dense population patterns, a lack of safe open space for children, and polluted open lots in so-called townships.

According to Andrew Boraine, chief executive of the Western Cape Economic Development Partnership, today compared to 1994 shows a better appreciation of the importance and role of public space in creating more liveable cities and towns. “However,” he says, “the real-life experience of public space of the majority of children in most of our towns and cities in South Africa is still negative.”

Welfare for children

A definite area of improvement has been the implementation of social grants for children.

From the country’s first democratic year up to 1997, there was no monetary child support in South Africa. It was introduced in 1998 and, says Berry, “This grant is the state’s largest child poverty alleviation programme and its benefits are well documented, including improving child nutrition, health and educational outcomes.”

According to an impact assessment by Unicef, it has been a positive development but certainly does have limitations. But, the report says, “The Child Support Grant is used primarily to buy food and serve the consumption needs of the whole household, due to widespread poverty and lack of employment. As a result, the grant is somewhat diluted across household members.”

In 2001, the child support grant accounted for 23 percent of all social grants given out, but last year, this had gone up to 71 percent.

l Farber’s post is funded by the DG Murray Trust. She writes about early childhood development and related issues.

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