Cape Town - In the wake of Child Protection Week, the Western Cape Child Commissioner’s (WCCC) annual report for 2020/2021 revealed that its caseload had almost trebled since the directorate’s inception three years ago.
The directorate – which recently celebrated its third anniversary on June 1, confirmed that it had tabled its report – which was delayed by some eight months – to Parliament in March this year with findings that between June 2021 and May 2022 the WCCC recorded a total of 137 complaints and enquiries.
This was a 174% increase in the number of complaints/cases received compared with the previous financial year’s 50 cases.
The WCCC report found that 41% of cases reported to it were linked to the Department of Social Development (DSD), and 23% were linked to the Western Cape Education Department (WCED).
In her report, WCCC commissioner Christine Nomdo said that in terms of the DSD’s cases, 49 were children and families-related cases, one was a development and research-related case, one was a case linked to the administration of the department, and five were linked to social welfare services.
“When zooming into the cases linked to children and families, cases include child protection matters, child and youth care centre (CYCC) resourcing constraints, appealing the decision of a social worker or the department, information or advice regarding someone else’s child, custody issues, and matters of adoption or foster care, whereas social welfare cases are linked to social grants,” Nomdo noted.
Twenty-three percent of enquiries/ complaints to the office were linked to the WCED, with 24 cases related to public schools, three cases were related to independent schools and a case was related to public special school education.
WCCC spokesperson Mthuthuzeli Ntseku said: “We are currently building an information management system to be more strategic about our case tracking and analysis. We also learnt many lessons from the African pioneer Children’s Ombud in Mauritius. The WCCC conducted a study visit to the Mauritian Ombudsperson to learn about their investigations policy and practices.
“This visit consequently yielded many lessons for the institution building of the WCCC.
“The WCCC will continue to build diplomatic and strategic links with other Ombudspersons for Children across the world. If we want to be world class, we need to know what is happening in the rest of the world,” said Ntseku.
Child protection organisations have called for more visibility of the directorate and the work it is doing.
Molo Songololo founder and director Patric Solomon said they were unaware that the report had been tabled already, but would review it with its children’s forums.
“Many are unaware of the report and have not seen it or read it. The release of the report was delayed for many months. Most children in the province are unaware of the existence of the WCCC, its purpose and work and so most children’s organisations are unaware of what the commissioner is doing.
“Molo Songololo was instrumental in establishing this provincial child rights monitoring mechanism. We have advocated for it to be fully independent. It is unclear what the commissioner and Parliament are doing to achieve this ... lack of independence only compromises the trust and work of a child rights monitoring mechanism,” said Solomon.
Ilitha Labantu spokesperson Siyabulela Monakale said: “As an organisation we would like to see the WCCC playing an extended role in it’s capacity, and not only limited to it’s oversight parameters that are extended to the given government departments, particularly in it’s research capacity. It could provide strategic input for civil society as the NGO sector plays a tremendous role in communities throughout the Western Cape, often being more accessible to communities then government departments.”
Cape Times