Date: 07/11/2003
Source: Ministry of Social Development
Title: Skweyiya: Greater support needed for efforts to protect children
THE NEED FOR GREATER SUPPORT OF COMMUNITY EFFORTS TO PROTECT CHILDREN BY DR ZOLA SKWEYIYA, MINISTER FOR SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT, 7 November 2003
Government's report entitled 'Towards a Ten Year Review', lists as one of the key social challenges for the next decade: Addressing HIV/AIDS and other emerging diseases by reducing the incidence of infection among high risk groups, treatment of those infected and increasing access to home-based care.
This is because according to the extrapolations used by the Joint Health and Treasury Task Team on Treatment Options for HIV/AIDS in the Public Sector, an estimated 4.7 million South African are infected with HIV and about 400 000 are at an advanced stage of AIDS.
As reported in government's ten year review discussion document, dedicated expenditure on HIV/AIDS across all national departments is set to increase tenfold to R3,6 billion in 2005/06. This increased expenditure is beginning to have an effect on the knowledge and behaviour of high-risk groups and there is increasing condom usage among the youth.
This increased expenditure is an important indicator, but just one of many indicators that we are resolute in our conviction that HIV and AIDS confronts South Africa with an urgent and present challenge to our social institutions, our human resources and the reconstruction and development of our society.
For the African National Congress (ANC) this conviction is a long standing one and a conviction on which it has acted since the first HIV/AIDS projects were launched for ANC cadres in Zambia in the 1980s. In preparing to return to South African the ANC held conference in Lusaka and Maputo with non-governmental organisations on the issue of HIV/AIDS. These consultations led to the launch of the National Aids Coalition of South Africa (Nacosa) in 1992 by Comrade Nelson Mandela. Prior to this the apartheid regime had only paid lip service to the issue of HIV/AIDS and remained fixated on the family planning and population control.
Since being unbanned in South Africa, the ANC has played a leadership role in placing HIV/AIDS on the public agenda. In preparation for the mandate we would be seeking from our people under a democratic dispensation, this is what the ANC said about HIV in its 'Ready to Govern' policy statement of May 1992. "The spread of HIV infection will lead to severe loss of human life, especially of the economically active. The stigma, which is associated with HIV infection, and the absence of a vaccine or curative measures place the responsibilities of curbing the spread of HIV beyond the health sector alone. The ANC is committed to making HIV a priority of all sections of society and especially of the highest decision making body in the land." Beyond this historical commitment, ANC branches throughout out country have been consistently used to disseminate information about HIV/AIDS and continue to serve as public education and community action forums.
Our people have never wavered from the resolutions to mitigating the impact of AIDS by rooting out discrimination and stigma against infected and affected people, building psycho-social support, providing essential medical care, providing support to families caring for people living with AIDS and orphans, and developing effective workplace programmes.
We are also committed to developing community capacity to respond to the pandemic by strengthening broad anti-poverty and community development programmes and supporting home-based care.
In line with these resolutions, government's programme of action and the priorities of the social cluster in cabinet, the Department of Social Development is tasked with addressing and dealing with the social aspects of HIV/AIDS with a particular focus on targeted groups - women, older people, the youth, people with disabilities, families and children. One of the reasons for the long-standing urgency of the Children's Bill currently before parliament is the need to deal with the needs of children affected by HIV/AIDS and the growing numbers of child headed households.
In the past four and a half years, the Ministry of Social Development and the various social service professionals in the field have witnessed at first hand the impact of HIV/AIDS on South African families, especially children. I have visited a number of community-based care and support projects throughout the country. These include the Masoyi Home-based Care project in Mpumalanga, the Salem Baby Care Centre in the Eastern Cape, the Tandanani project and the Cindi Network in KwaZulu-Natal, and the Tumelong and Lotus House projects in Winterveldt. These visits have convinced me of the urgent need for legislation regarding protective measures relating to the health of children. In particular, issues relating to the giving of consent for medical treatment, HIV testing, and access to contraceptives.
The Children's Bill contains provisions for a High Court procedure to allow persons besides parents to gain rights with regard to children, and it addresses the need to formally recognise and provide for child-headed households. It also provides for court ordered kinship care to allow for the placement of children with a family member who is not the guardian of the child. The Bill deals specifically with children affected by HIV/AIDS. The placement of child-headed households in a cluster foster-care scheme is a significant opportunity to protect the most vulnerable of our children.
The actions of government are only the tip of the iceberg in comparison to the individual acts of solidarity and volunteerism, community and sector initiatives and collaborations, and the collective mobilisation of our people in response to HIV and AIDS. These individual and collective actions deserve more appreciation because they are vital to success. These individual and collective actions are consistent with our history of struggle to create a democratic and just South Africa.
The Sinikithemba Support Group, for instance, which is associated with the St. Clement's Home-based Care Project in Claremont, Durban, is responding to an overlooked gap in the counselling services provided to families affected and infected with HIV/AIDS. The presumption has been that counselling services directed at families would include their children. This has often not been the case. Due to the stigma attached to the disease and traditional concepts of the hierarchy of responsibility in extended families, children were being denied and shielded from timeous information about their parents HIV positive status.
These children were thus being traumatised by the humiliating manner in which they first learn about the status of their parents, either through being taunted by other children at school or from over hearing the whispers of neighbours behind their backs in public places. Social service professionals, families and communities were not taking these children into their confidence. These children were also not being equipped with the knowledge about how to protect themselves while caring for HIV positive parents.
In response to this situation the children of the members of the Sinikithemba Support Group have decided to form their own youth peer support group to share experiences and information about accessing the services provided by government and other agencies. As youth, they are asserting their "Right to Know" all the facts about how HIV/AIDS affects them, they are actively taking charge of their situation and putting in place their own HIV/AIDS programme that addresses the social aspects of the disease.
The Sinikithemba Support Group and the St. Clement's Home-based Care Project, which are supported by the Catholic church, are just one of thousands of such community-driven HIV prevention and AIDS care initiatives in our country. In 2002 the Department of Social Development documented and published 14 best practice case studies of the partnerships between communities, faith-based organisation, the business sector, and NGOs focused on the social aspects of HIV/AIDS.
In addition, groundbreaking field research is being conducted in this area by the Social Aspects of HIV/AIDS Research Alliance (SAHARA) based at the Human Science Research Council. The thousands of community-driven HIV prevention and AIDS care initiatives in our country are making a positive difference in the lives of hundreds of thousands of our people. In these challenging times, whether these initiatives qualify as heroic should not be a preoccupying fascination.
We all have a responsibility to participate in and support individual acts of solidarity and volunteerism, community and sector initiatives and collaborations, and the collective mobilisation of our people in response to HIV and AIDS.
Media enquires: Mbulelo Musi, 082 904 3395
Issued by: Ministry of Social Development
7 November 2003
Source: Ministry of Social Development
Title: Skweyiya: Greater support needed for efforts to protect children
THE NEED FOR GREATER SUPPORT OF COMMUNITY EFFORTS TO PROTECT CHILDREN BY DR ZOLA SKWEYIYA, MINISTER FOR SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT, 7 November 2003
Government's report entitled 'Towards a Ten Year Review', lists as one of the key social challenges for the next decade: Addressing HIV/AIDS and other emerging diseases by reducing the incidence of infection among high risk groups, treatment of those infected and increasing access to home-based care.
This is because according to the extrapolations used by the Joint Health and Treasury Task Team on Treatment Options for HIV/AIDS in the Public Sector, an estimated 4.7 million South African are infected with HIV and about 400 000 are at an advanced stage of AIDS.
As reported in government's ten year review discussion document, dedicated expenditure on HIV/AIDS across all national departments is set to increase tenfold to R3,6 billion in 2005/06. This increased expenditure is beginning to have an effect on the knowledge and behaviour of high-risk groups and there is increasing condom usage among the youth.
This increased expenditure is an important indicator, but just one of many indicators that we are resolute in our conviction that HIV and AIDS confronts South Africa with an urgent and present challenge to our social institutions, our human resources and the reconstruction and development of our society.
For the African National Congress (ANC) this conviction is a long standing one and a conviction on which it has acted since the first HIV/AIDS projects were launched for ANC cadres in Zambia in the 1980s. In preparing to return to South African the ANC held conference in Lusaka and Maputo with non-governmental organisations on the issue of HIV/AIDS. These consultations led to the launch of the National Aids Coalition of South Africa (Nacosa) in 1992 by Comrade Nelson Mandela. Prior to this the apartheid regime had only paid lip service to the issue of HIV/AIDS and remained fixated on the family planning and population control.
Since being unbanned in South Africa, the ANC has played a leadership role in placing HIV/AIDS on the public agenda. In preparation for the mandate we would be seeking from our people under a democratic dispensation, this is what the ANC said about HIV in its 'Ready to Govern' policy statement of May 1992. "The spread of HIV infection will lead to severe loss of human life, especially of the economically active. The stigma, which is associated with HIV infection, and the absence of a vaccine or curative measures place the responsibilities of curbing the spread of HIV beyond the health sector alone. The ANC is committed to making HIV a priority of all sections of society and especially of the highest decision making body in the land." Beyond this historical commitment, ANC branches throughout out country have been consistently used to disseminate information about HIV/AIDS and continue to serve as public education and community action forums.
Our people have never wavered from the resolutions to mitigating the impact of AIDS by rooting out discrimination and stigma against infected and affected people, building psycho-social support, providing essential medical care, providing support to families caring for people living with AIDS and orphans, and developing effective workplace programmes.
We are also committed to developing community capacity to respond to the pandemic by strengthening broad anti-poverty and community development programmes and supporting home-based care.
In line with these resolutions, government's programme of action and the priorities of the social cluster in cabinet, the Department of Social Development is tasked with addressing and dealing with the social aspects of HIV/AIDS with a particular focus on targeted groups - women, older people, the youth, people with disabilities, families and children. One of the reasons for the long-standing urgency of the Children's Bill currently before parliament is the need to deal with the needs of children affected by HIV/AIDS and the growing numbers of child headed households.
In the past four and a half years, the Ministry of Social Development and the various social service professionals in the field have witnessed at first hand the impact of HIV/AIDS on South African families, especially children. I have visited a number of community-based care and support projects throughout the country. These include the Masoyi Home-based Care project in Mpumalanga, the Salem Baby Care Centre in the Eastern Cape, the Tandanani project and the Cindi Network in KwaZulu-Natal, and the Tumelong and Lotus House projects in Winterveldt. These visits have convinced me of the urgent need for legislation regarding protective measures relating to the health of children. In particular, issues relating to the giving of consent for medical treatment, HIV testing, and access to contraceptives.
The Children's Bill contains provisions for a High Court procedure to allow persons besides parents to gain rights with regard to children, and it addresses the need to formally recognise and provide for child-headed households. It also provides for court ordered kinship care to allow for the placement of children with a family member who is not the guardian of the child. The Bill deals specifically with children affected by HIV/AIDS. The placement of child-headed households in a cluster foster-care scheme is a significant opportunity to protect the most vulnerable of our children.
The actions of government are only the tip of the iceberg in comparison to the individual acts of solidarity and volunteerism, community and sector initiatives and collaborations, and the collective mobilisation of our people in response to HIV and AIDS. These individual and collective actions deserve more appreciation because they are vital to success. These individual and collective actions are consistent with our history of struggle to create a democratic and just South Africa.
The Sinikithemba Support Group, for instance, which is associated with the St. Clement's Home-based Care Project in Claremont, Durban, is responding to an overlooked gap in the counselling services provided to families affected and infected with HIV/AIDS. The presumption has been that counselling services directed at families would include their children. This has often not been the case. Due to the stigma attached to the disease and traditional concepts of the hierarchy of responsibility in extended families, children were being denied and shielded from timeous information about their parents HIV positive status.
These children were thus being traumatised by the humiliating manner in which they first learn about the status of their parents, either through being taunted by other children at school or from over hearing the whispers of neighbours behind their backs in public places. Social service professionals, families and communities were not taking these children into their confidence. These children were also not being equipped with the knowledge about how to protect themselves while caring for HIV positive parents.
In response to this situation the children of the members of the Sinikithemba Support Group have decided to form their own youth peer support group to share experiences and information about accessing the services provided by government and other agencies. As youth, they are asserting their "Right to Know" all the facts about how HIV/AIDS affects them, they are actively taking charge of their situation and putting in place their own HIV/AIDS programme that addresses the social aspects of the disease.
The Sinikithemba Support Group and the St. Clement's Home-based Care Project, which are supported by the Catholic church, are just one of thousands of such community-driven HIV prevention and AIDS care initiatives in our country. In 2002 the Department of Social Development documented and published 14 best practice case studies of the partnerships between communities, faith-based organisation, the business sector, and NGOs focused on the social aspects of HIV/AIDS.
In addition, groundbreaking field research is being conducted in this area by the Social Aspects of HIV/AIDS Research Alliance (SAHARA) based at the Human Science Research Council. The thousands of community-driven HIV prevention and AIDS care initiatives in our country are making a positive difference in the lives of hundreds of thousands of our people. In these challenging times, whether these initiatives qualify as heroic should not be a preoccupying fascination.
We all have a responsibility to participate in and support individual acts of solidarity and volunteerism, community and sector initiatives and collaborations, and the collective mobilisation of our people in response to HIV and AIDS.
Media enquires: Mbulelo Musi, 082 904 3395
Issued by: Ministry of Social Development
7 November 2003
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