NCVT - The National Children and Violence Trust
Children’s rights continue to be violated after new protection laws
2 April 2024
BY THOKO MKHWANAZI-XALUVA
While the rights of children have changed a lot since 1994, the road ahead is still a long and winding one to address the imbalances and vulnerability which persist. Image: SINO MAJANGAZA/ Daily Dispatch
SA has been a country not fit for its children. Even after its world acclaimed political dispensation that came with April 27 1994, the conditions children are in are nowhere near inspiring for our 30-year-old democracy to write home about. The legacy of the country’s ugly past still lives with us.
To all people who were not white, the apartheid system was vicious. Born to parents fated to make ends meet in such a system, conditions of children were not any better.
They had no rights within their families, in their communities and in schools to speak of. Failure by their parents to pay school fees took away their right to education. Lack of access to healthcare facilities, placed them in harm’s way resulting in premature deaths.
With the nationwide revolt of June 16 1976, children were not spared. Their murder by security forces was unprecedented and so were the detentions that followed.
The onslaught continued into the 80s and early 90s. Children were caught up in the calculated “black-on-black violence” as was guided by the hidden hand of apartheid death squads sworn to create destruction and mayhem in communities of the oppressed.
