Current
Current news
Children who don’t have birth certificates are at risk of being excluded from school if the Department of Basic Education does not provide school funding for those without a valid ID number. There is emerging evidence that this is already happening in the Eastern Cape.
The University of Cape Town’s (UCT) Children’s Institute has welcomed the Constitutional Court judgment that says there is no justification for parents to hit their children in the name of discipline.
We don’t need more research, we need action. Some of what must be done is already outlined in South African laws and policies. The Children’s Act, for instance, makes violence prevention interventions mandatory.
In June, the Children's Institute, as part of a group of concerned academics and civil society leaders wrote to President Cyril Ramaphosa urging him to make violence against women and violence against children in ALL it's forms a top priority for his new cabinet. The president's office sent us a lacklustre response that same month.
In Africa 14.5% of children under the age of 16 are suffering from the effects of violence – both collective and interpersonal violence – resulting in long-term trauma. In the Western Cape the prevalence is 17%, with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) affecting 8% of under-16s and generalised anxiety disorder affecting 11%.
Congratulations to Natasha Hendricks, a PhD fellow based at the Children’s Institute, for being selected as a recipient of the Resources and Prevention of Child Abuse and Neglect (RAPCAN) Legacy Doctoral scholarship in July 2019.
WOODSTOCK, CAPE TOWN, 22 May 2019— The Children's Institute and Media Monitoring Africa hosted 21 journalists at a media training workshop on Ethically Reporting on Violence Against Children in Cape Town 22 May 2019. The workshop was intended as a hands-on, practical training to empower reporters who cover stories and cases involving children with knowledge and skills in children's rights, ethics and the law surrounding children.
One of the first tasks of South Africa’s Sixth Parliament will be to determine the fate of the Children’s Amendment Bill. Despite content and process errors that could expose vulnerable children to harm and increase the burden on overworked social workers and discrepancies with both the National Child Care and Protection Policy and government’s strategy for early childhood development, the bill has been rushed to Parliament. So why the indecent haste?
The Children’s Institute and The Poverty and Inequality Initiative co-hosted a special seminar on the main findings and policy recommendations of a book published by Policy Press in the UK: Tracing the Consequences of Child Poverty: Evidence from the Young Lives study in Cape Town 10 April 2019.
Emeritus Associate Professor Andy Dawes and Professor Colin Tredoux, both from UCT’s Department of Psychology, co-authored the book alongside the University of Oxford’s Professor Jo Boyden and Dr Paul Dornan. Boyden is the director of Young Lives, the study on which Tracing the Consequences is based.
The South African Child Gauge is a crucial resource utilised by civil society, academic and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) who advocate for the rights of South Africa’s children and pursue social justice, University of Cape Town (UCT) Children’s Institute (CI) director Professor Shanaaz Mathews told guests at the Cape Town launch of the 13th edition of the annual review.
South Africa is one of a small number of developing countries that’s formulated a national policy focused on families. A family policy, broadly defined, refers to everything a government does to promote the well-being of families, such as social grants, family services, or social housing. The country’s policy – known as the White Paper on Families – has three priorities. They are promoting healthy family life, strengthening the family and preserving the family.
Nearly half of women across South Africa are subjected to violence by an intimate partner. This in turn negatively affects about one in four children. A child who is exposed to violence in the home also risks being abused and will, quite reasonably, fear for their own safety.
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