MEDIA ALERT: South African government to account for progress on realising child rights

Today and Tommorow, 19-20 September 2016, a delegation of the South African Government will meet with the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child (UNCRoC) in Geneva, Switzerland, to discuss South Africa’s progress in realising children’s rights.

The dialogue should engage with questions on progress on education, health, social security, addressing violence and child protection amongst others.

UCT’s Children’s Institute is a member of the Alternate Report Coalition-Children's Rights South Africa (ARC-CRSA), an alliance of organisations invested in realising children’s rights in the country. The ARC-CRSA has compiled South Africa’s Alternate Report that was presented to the UNCRoC in 2016. These Alternate Reports serve as civil society’s response to the Country Reports that governments submit every five years under the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC).

The South African Alternate Report raised issues of concern in areas such as child protection and violence, birth registration, child poverty, inequality and social grants, foster care challenges and health care priorities.

The ARC-CRSA hopes that, at the dialogue on 19 and 20 September, the South African Government will be asked to account for ever weakening political leadership and governance structures for realising children's rights, to address the reasons behind persistent failures in budget allocations and/or spending to realise children's rights, and the deepening social and economic inequality. These result in children in South Africa having very different lived experiences depending on the circumstances of their birth – the children with the greatest vulnerabilities experience greater exclusion and discrimination.

The dialogue between the UNCRoC and the South African government delegation will be livestreamed at www.treatybodywebcast.org.

For more information on the reporting process, please see below. For the SA Government and ARC-CRSA reports, visit http://dullahomarinstitute.org.za/women-and-democracy/south-africas-reporting-on-childrens-rights-to-the-un.

For comment from the Children’s Institute, contact:

·       Stefanie Röhrs, senior researcher: stefanie [dot] rohrs [at] uct [dot] ac [dot] za or 021 650 5391; or

·       Morgan Morris, communications officer: morgan [dot] morris [at] uct [dot] ac [dot] za or 079 522 1142.