Source: Cassiem & Streak (2001: 20-23) & Streak (2002).

The third column gives the statistics for very poor children. It shows that there are 11 million very poor children living in South Africa. There are therefore many children living in poverty that need assistance.

The eradication of poverty requires an inter-sectoral, co-ordinated and comprehensive response from government, the private sector and everyone in society.

ACESS recently conducted participatory research with children across the country who are living in poverty. We asked them a number of questions and conducted various exercises to get them to tell us what kind of assistance they need. One of the questions that we asked them was "How can government help you?". This is what they said:

"Government can help us by paying school fees, we will be happy if we can get money to buy food, uniform."

"I need healthy food."

"I will be happy if I can have money for transport because I am far away from school. I walk a long distance without having something to eat. I also need pen, glues, ruler etc. We need money to buy these things."

"The government must create jobs for our parents. If my mother got a job that paid – I would go back home."

"I need money, clothes, shoes, socks, warm clothes and food."

"We need a tap for water, shoes for school, uniform, food, and money for school fees."

"I would use money for school fees because I love school with all my heart."

"Money for things like soap, colgate and Vaseline."

"We need cars to carry people who are ill to the clinic."


Children need a package of services, grants, programmes and benefits – they need a comprehensive system that provides for all their basic needs: Food, transport, school fees, school stationary, school uniforms, clothes, shelter, safety, health care, water and sanitation.

The Report recommends that everyone in South Africa should have access to a basic minimum income through the child support grant (0 to 17), Basic Income Grant (adults between 18 and 65) or old age pension (65 onwards).

Furthermore all people should have access to free or subsidized services such as primary and secondary education, lifeline water and electricity, transport, sanitation, primary health care, housing, and skills training.

People with special needs should also be entitled to cash grants and services eg disability grants, foster child grants, free assistive devices and subsidized accessible transport.

The Report stresses that it is not desirable for a poor person to have to choose between basics. Due to the fact that the current safety net has large holes in it, poor people often do not receive any protection at all (eg unemployed adults) or are forced to use the little protection they receive (eg an old age pension) to pay for a basic service that should be free or subsidized (eg the grandchildren's school fees).

"My father is working but he earns very little. The problem is he has to buy food, pay people who borrowed him money and pay our school fees." (Boy, 15, WC, Samora)

The reality of families having to choose between basics often results in the children going hungry or not being able to go to school. When competition for basics is high, children that are particularly vulnerable, such as orphaned children being cared for by extended family members, often bear the brunt of the scarcity of resources in the household.

"When the child goes out, the ones who belong to the house are given food. They leave you bones and makhokho [burnt part of pap]" (11 year old)

"In some homes, when they have taken a child in, the child is unable to do homework, he is sent around all the time, to clean and fetch water. Others do not do anything. They do not treat you equally. My remaining relatives discriminate between me and their children. It’s like I’m a slave." (10 year old)

"I live with two uncles and they are not working. It is hard because my grandmother is very ill. I need them to get employment because they pay my fees. I need money to buy my medication. To get money I need to tell everybody that I am HIV positive even if I don’t want to tell them. If government can improve the process of finding the grant. Their process takes too long. To help us to get healthy food. We need clean water. If they can help the organization that helps us because it is our only hope to service the challenges of HIV/AIDS." (16 year old girl)

The package approach will also enable people to use their income grants for food, self empowerment, development and work-generating activities as the cash grant will not have to be used to pay for basic services such as life-line water and electricity, education, sanitation, and basic health care.

ACESS therefore strongly supports the package approach. If implemented effectively, it will greatly improve children's lives. A one-pronged attack at the problem will not work - we need a multi-pronged, inter-departmental approach including cash grants, benefits, and accessible basic services programmes.

2.2 ACESS calls for no means tests for the universal grants (CSG, BIG and OAP) and simplified means test for the special needs grants (CDG, DG and FCG)

An important aspect of a comprehensive social protection package of cash grants and free and subsidized services, which ACESS strongly supports, is the eradication of the means test for the CSG and BIG in order to overcome barriers for the poor in accessing this package. The Committee is not clear which means-test for which grants should be eliminated and which ones should be simplified. The Report indicates that the BIG would not be means-tested, as this would undermine the benefits of its universality.

ACESS calls for the immediate and complete abolishment of the means-test for the CSG, due to the fact that the means-test excludes those persons most in need of assistance. Considering that between 60 and 70% of children live in poverty in South Africa, the expenses and administrative burden cannot be justified in targeting only a small percentage of those in need.

However, for the ‘Special-needs grants, such as the CDG and the adult DG, eligibility must be based on the needs-based assessment, which would also consider the financial situation and needs of the applicant.

2.3 ACESS calls for more emphasis on nutritional programmes as part of the package of comprehensive social protection

The following quotes are voices of children living in poverty. ACESS undertook a child participatory process to give children an opportunity to express their views on poverty and social security. This is what some of them said about hunger:

"For my side the biggest problem is food. Sometime we end up not getting any food at home and don’t know what to do. We feel sad because my grandmother don’t have money to buy food. The other problem is to have school shoes". (Boy, 15, NP)

"When I go to school I don’t eat breakfast, but I wake up at 6.00am. I am living with my grandmother and she does not get pension. Sometimes I go to school without carrying the lunch box but at least we get food at school." (Girl, 12, NP)

"Money is very scarce. Sometimes when I go to school I do not have anything to eat like bread. My parent is not working." (Boy, 15, WC, Samora)

"The problem is waking up with nothing to eat. You go to school hungry." (Boy, 16, WC, Samora)

The Committee of Inquiry Report does not clearly specify that nutritional support for children must be part of the comprehensive social protection package. In the section on the child support grant, the Report mentions that the CSG should be accompanied by food support programmes but it does not provide any detail on these programmes.

Food prices are rising due to inflation increases. In the next few years, poor families will continue to struggle to feed their children, even if the extension of the CSG becomes an effective reality.

Due to the rise in inflation over the last few years and the resultant rapid depreciation of the Rand, the prices of both producer goods and food have risen substantially. The impact of this is of particular concern for poor households. In particular, goods that absorb a large portion of poor peoples’ expenditure – such as maize, sugar, bread, milk and eggs – have seen large increases. The National Food Consumption survey showed that the foods most-commonly consumed by children aged 1 to 9 years were; maize, sugar, bread, milk and tea. Therefore, increases in the prices of these basic foodstuffs will have a detrimental impact on poor children's nutritional status.

The Integrated Nutrition Programme (INP) aims to provide a co-ordinated, intersectoral approach to nutritional deficiencies among women and children, through health facilities and community based nutritional promotion programmes, including the Primary School Nutrition Programme (PSNP). The quality and quantity of the food provided by the PSNP has been found to be below adequate, and corruption and misappropriation of funds has occurred. There has been no follow-up evaluation of the PSNP since the 1997 evaluation. However, despite problems with the schemes, discussions with children reveal that the snack provided at school is often their only daily meal.

ACESS is concerned by the lack of attention given to nutrition programmes for children in the Report and we recommend that Cabinet give more attention to this area in its deliberations.

ACESS recommends that nutritional support for children must be an essential ingredient of the package.

The primary school feeding scheme must remain as an essential ingredient of the social protection package and be improved upon to ensure that children's nutritional needs are provided for. Improvements must include effective management of schemes and quality of food.

Children in ECD centres, crèches and secondary schools should also be provided with nutritional support through state funded feeding schemes.

The Protein Energy Malnutrition Scheme that provides vulnerable mothers and babies with nutritional support must be retained and improved upon

2.4 ACESS calls for more detail on how access to land and credit, as components of the comprehensive social protection package, will be improved.

While the Report clearly lists access to land and credit as a part of the comprehensive package of social protection, it does not provide recommendations on how access to land and credit should be improved.

Access to land and credit are essential in order for people to produce food and to start small businesses.

ACESS recommends that further details on how access to land and credit will be improved, be provided in the next stage of the policy reform process.



PHASING IN THE PACKAGE OF SOCIAL PROTECTION

3.1 The Child Support Grant as the first phase of the income grants

The Report recommends that the new comprehensive system should be phased in over time. The Committee stresses that the first phase of the new system should prioritise the most vulnerable, namely children up to the age of 18 years. The Report recommends that this be achieved through the extension of the child support grant to all children under 18 years.

ACESS supports this recommendation and we would like to see the immediate implementation of the recent extension to eligible children up to the age of 14 years as a first step in that direction, with a clear commitment to extend to all children under the age of 18 in 2004.

Phased-in Extension of Child Support Grant to children under 14 years of age

In the State of the Nation address this year, the State President announced that the CSG will be extended to eligible children under the age of 14. This is in line with the decisions taken at both the ANC Policy Conference in September 2002 and the National Conference in December 2002.

Shortly thereafter, the Minister for Social Development, announced that the extension to 14 years would be ‘phased in’ over the next 3 years. A plan for phasing in the extension is laid down in the Regulations to the Social Assistance Act. According to the Regulations, the CSG will be extended progressively over three years to cover eligible children under the age of 14.
As of 1 April 2003, children under 9 qualify.
As of 1 April 2004, children under 11 will qualify.
As of 1 April 2005, children under 14 will qualify.
[Government Gazette No. 24630, 31 March 2003]

The phased-in plan was intended to ease the implementation of the extension of the child support grant to children under 14 years, and hopefully eventually to children under 18 years. However, much confusion abounds due to the regulations being unclear and a lack of effective communication of the phased-in extension to communities and to social security officials in the provinces.

Since the announcement of the phased-in extension, ACESS has been monitoring the impact of the implementation of the extension on the ground. ACESS has received many reports of massive confusion around the implementation plan amongst applicants and officials alike.

Problems with the phased-in scheme include the following:

Families have to bear the extra, unnecessary costs in transport, documentation and time expended by the primary caregiver and their children who have to travel back and forth to the nearest Social Development Office to register for grants according to this scheme.
Welfare Departments in some provinces are taking their own decisions not to register children who are between eight and nine years old. In Provinces like Mpumalanga, Limpopo, Eastern Cape and KwaZulu-Natal, children "who are eligible in terms of the Regulations" are met with signs saying "Only children under 8" and officials who still insist that they will not register children who are over 8 but less than nine years because of "lack of capacity".
The Department has said that children who turn 9 before 1 April 2004 will fall off the system and their care givers will have to re-register them on 1 April 2004 when they again become eligible, meaning that caregivers will have to incur the extra cost, time and effort of registering their child twice.
Children who are currently 12 and 13 years old who will never see the light of the child support grant.
People are queuing in social services offices across the country to register 10 to 14 year olds because they do not know what is meant by the phased-in plan.

The following statements from people affected on the ground illustrate some of the problems and confusion that the phased-in approach has brought on the poor.

Florence Mahlangu’s son, Sibusiso was born in 1994 August 29, which means he is 8 years and four months old – therefore under 9 years and qualifies for the child support grant (CSG) as of 1^st April 2003. However, Florence Mahlangu has been turned away several times by officials in the social services offices in Odi, Mabopane (Pretoria) claiming her son will only qualify for the child support grant on 1^st April 2004.

Thoko Mkhwanazi pays just over ten rands from Kwamhlanga Township in Kwandebele to social services offices in Kwakga. She’s been to the social services offices more times than she can count. Every time she is told that her 8-year-eight-month old daughter, Sara Mokwena who was born on 25 August 1994, will only qualify for the child support grant after the 1^st of April 2004.

"I have explained to the officials that on the radio they said she [Sara] qualifies for the grant," says Mkhwanazi. "But they insist that she will only qualify next year."

Winnie Leyane from Pienaar (KaDantjie) in Nelspruit was only told after queuing for a week that her 9-year-old son Joseph, who was born in 1993, will only qualify for the child support grant from the 1^st of April 2004."These people gave me a number and let me queue for a week," she says. "Then they tell me that I must come next year."

"I’ve been waking up at 4.00am for the whole week. Most of these people [the caregivers] are turned away because we don’t know what’s the right age," says Leyane.

"All the papers that they give us are written in English and we can’t read. We don’t know if they [the social workers] are telling the truth or not because some people are saying it’s all children under 14," added Leyane.

Administration and delivery of social grants by the Department of Social Development are already swamped with problems. These problems are being exacerbated and perpetuated by this complex and unreasonable phased-in scheme.

The impact of these problems on beneficiary’s access to social assistance rights will range from high costs to beneficiaries, long queues in very uncomfortable conditions, delays in the approval and payment of grants, and unnecessary suspension and termination of grants.

Due to these problems, ACESS is calling on the Government to change the unreasonable phased-in policy and instead implement the extension to 14 years immediately. This will require increased human resource capacity, especially in the rural areas, and including more social workers.

ACESS supports the extension of the CSG to all children under 18 years

Even if the Department of Social Development manages to reach all the poor children under 14yrs living in poverty, there will still be:

3 million 15 to18yr-olds living in poverty without any assistance, of which 2.5 million are living in dire poverty.
60% of the adult population who are living in poverty, will continue to receive no assistance.

In light of South Africa's constitutional obligations to children, it is imperative that children's social security needs are prioritized. ACESS therefore supports the call for children first by extending the child support grant to all children under 18 years. However, the best way of prioritizing children's social security needs is through ensuring a comprehensive social security system that includes access to free basic services and a basic income grant for everyone. If the system does not support the child's family through free basic services and basic income grants, the child's cash grant will be used to pay for the entire families basic needs leaving very little to be dedicated to the child's needs. For this reason, ACESS supports the extension of the CSG as the first step of the phasing in of the basic income grants but not as a stand alone solution.

It is important for Cabinet to keep in mind the state's constitutional and international obligations when it decides on the exact nature of the implementation strategy, the timeframes and the amount of resources that will be allocated to ensuring that children can access the grants in the short, medium and long term.

While the Report recommends that the CSG be extended to all children under 18, it does not specify how this will be achieved. Noting the concerns raised above regarding the phased-in extension of the CSG to children up to the age of 14, ACESS strongly recommends that a plan for the eventual extension of the CSG to all children under 18, not follow the same phased-in route.


ACESS would therefore like to see a commitment to extend a non-means tested CSG to all children under 18 in 2004, to be implemented at once. (See 2.2 above on the means test)

ACESS calls for a detailed plan to address the many legislative, service delivery and administrative barriers facing CSG applicants

Children and caregivers attempting to access the CSG face many administrative and service delivery barriers. If the CSG is to be extended and social security for children improved, these hurdles must be removed.

While the Report covers some of the problems with the child support grant, it does not provide a detailed and coherent analysis and does not recommend how these problems should be solved in the short to medium term. We believe that a thorough analysis is required to inform the improvements to enable the transformation of the current system to a comprehensive package of social protection.

The major concern stressed by ACESS members is the lack of attention given to the fact that many South Africans, especially poor South Africans and children made vulnerable by HIV, do not have identity documents or birth certificates. Without identity documents, they cannot access many of the various components of the social security package; free water; education; grants etc. Statistics on the number of people in South Africa with birth certificates and identity documents indicate that 49% of children do not have birth certificates.

"The other problem that I think people experience is that when they apply they need so many things, like ID and it has long been lost. Then they must apply for this first." (WC)

"The problem will be birth certificates. I don’t have one – I cannot get an ID book. I don’t know even now where my mother is – what can I do?"(Gauteng)

"It is a problem of money because Home Affairs is far from here – we cannot go all the time to try and get a birth certificate." (KZN)







In the table below, we list the barriers and outline the action that needs to be taken to remove the barrier.

3.2 The Basic Income Grant as the second phase of the income grants

3.2.1 ACESS supports the introduction of a Basic Income Grant for everyone from cradle to grave

The Report recommends the introduction of a Basic Income Grant for everyone and indicates that this would be implemented in phase two of the programme in 2006.

The whole social security net currently provided by the government fails to cover a large proportion of the population, that of unemployed adults. Due to the chronic structural unemployment in the country, these people are unlikely to find jobs. Thus, in a poor household of six people, the money being received for two children under 14 years, will feed the entire family, and thus the children’s specific needs are not met by the grant. However, if all members of the family received a basic income grant, the children’s basic needs are more likely to be met.

The critical state of poverty and unemployment undermines the intended effectiveness of the existing grants, such as the Old Age pension and the Child Support Grant, which are being used to feed entire households and therefore not directly benefiting the intended beneficiaries. The failure of the current system to address the high levels of poverty among the increasing numbers of unemployed adults, must be addressed with some urgency.

In our child participatory research, we asked children living in poverty across the country if a basic income grant would make a difference in their lives. This is what they said:

It will make a difference especially if no one is working in the house. They will buy food, clothes, help to pay school fees and to pay rent at home. (Girl, 13, Northern Cape)

Yes, R100 would help – we can use some to buy uniform, food, pay water, to help my grandmother to do a fence at home. We also need to fix our house so we don’t suffer from the rain and wind. We would also use it to buy stationery for school. (Boy, 10, Northern Province)

If you are hungry you will use it for food and if you need a uniform you will not buy sweets. (Girl, 10, Eastern Cape)

It will make a difference because we will have enough money to buy food. My challenge at home it was food. I think it will make a big difference if we all got R100. It will help us extend our one room – we all stayed in it – it was difficult. (Girl, 16, Gauteng)

I will buy clothes, shoes, socks. (Boy, 13, Eastern Cape)

Brown shoes for school – they (the school) want brown shoes. (Boy, 8, Northern Province)

I could buy food like Mielie meal, meat and chicken. (Boy, 7, Mpumalanga)

Food for my mother and clothes and shoes. I will open a bank account to save some money and also buy a bus ticket. (Girl, 16, Mpumalanga)

If everybody in the family got it – it would be good – even R300 a month would make a difference. (Girl, 16, Western Cape)

It will be useful for then we can buy food and eat before we go to school. (Girl, 12, KwaZulu Natal)


International evidence also shows a clear coloration between increased family income and child wellbeing.

If we want to improve children’s lives, we need to support families, especially young families and extended family structures. Providing everyone with a basic income grant will increase the total income in each household which will greatly improve children’s lives.

We agree with all the arguments for a BIG, such as a means to reduce severe deprivation and to close the poverty gap, leading to improved social stability and encouraging self-reliance and ultimately development. In particular, we agree that such a grant would greatly enhance the access of poor persons to the other services that are their right. We believe that such an intervention is the government’s obligation to provide at least minimal assistance to the poorest persons currently not supported; namely unemployed adults.

In addition, the increased household incomes would greatly enhance the well-being of children, and would reduce the need for children to have to undertake work, such as commercial sex activities, and could potentially reduce the incidence of children living on the streets due to poverty at home.

ACESS believes that introducing a BIG for all is ultimately the best way of ensuring that children’s social security needs are reliably and sustainably prioritised.

3.2.2 ACESS calls for a detailed plan for the implementation of the BIG with clear timeframes to ensure full implementation by 2007

The Report recommends that the BIG be phased in for adults starting in 2006 and ending in 2015. ACESS submits that the extension of the CSG to all children under 18 in 2004, and a period of three years (2004 to 2007) to ensure the smooth functioning of the system is a sufficient and reasonable time frame. The universal BIG should then be in place by 2007 at the latest.

We support the Basic Income Grant Coalition’s submission on the preparations for the phasing in of the BIG. These include and initial phase to identify and address obstacles to the roll-out of the BIG so that government will be ready to launch the grant by 2007. The next 3 years, namely 2003-2006 should allow sufficient time to establish the institutional mechanisms and processes necessary for the smooth administration of the BIG, including: the registration of both adults and children; the extension of the Post Bank system, and negotiation with other potential delivery agents to develop a reliable payment infrastructure; and education and training programmes for the public and civil servants about the grant.

3.3 The implementation of free and subsidized basic services

3.3.1 ACESS calls for a detailed plan for improving access to free and subsidized basic services in the short to medium term

The Report states that free and subsidized basic services are an essential part of the package of comprehensive social protection. However, besides the chapter on a national health insurance, the Report does not specify how these basic services will be provided to those in need.

Currently, many people in rural areas and informal settlements do not have access to services as the infrastructure is non-existent. For those people who live in areas where services are provided, many cannot afford the services.

"The problem is the municipality is increasing the water every month. There are 8 in the house and we get one pension (a foster care grant for this child)". (Girl, 12, N Cape)

The various services (water, electricity, education, health care) have different plans of action to prioritize service delivery and different applications systems for people wanting to apply for a free or subsidized service. Many of the application systems use means tests and are administratively complex and designed to exclude, resulting in many poor people not bothering to apply or to follow through with application processes.

The Report recommends that every person will have the ingredients of the social protection package to which they are entitled stored on their identity card (smart card). This card will then be used to apply for free or subsidized basic services.

ACESS supports the idea of a smart card incorporating this information and the idea of a standardized system of access to free or subsidized services. This will ensure that there is only one system and one application process to secure access to basic services.

However, the technology and system implementation for the smart card system is some time away. The Report does not provide recommendations on how access to the various free or subsidized services programmes should be improved in the short to medium term.

If the package of services does not provide adequately for free or subsidized services in the short to medium term, families will be forced to use their Child Support Grants to pay for basic services. The benefit of extending the grant to all children will be diluted as whole families have to survive on it and pay for the basic services for the child.

ACESS therefore calls for a detailed plan for improving access to free and subsidized basic services in the short to medium term, with an emphasis on water, electricity, sanitation, transport, education, and health care.

3.3.2 ACESS calls for the implementation of a system that allows for genuine free education for children who cannot afford to pay
"The teachers shout at you. They say that we cannot sit on the seats at school because we don’t pay school fees. People who sit on the chairs are those who pay school fees. The teachers like to swear at us. They don’t have a good way of approaching children. They keep on teasing us about the school fees. It is not nice because we also like to pay we just don’t have money." (Girl, 11, NP)
"You are reminded always to bring school fees. If the year ends and you haven’t paid, your report is withheld." (Girl, 13, WC, Samora)

"For me it was June. I didn’t receive my report because I didn’t pay fees. (before Thandanani paid fees) My mother was forced to pay R50.00 in order for me to receive my report." (Girl, 12, KZN)

"My problem is I am not having pens. The teacher sends us home to ask for school fees and my aunt doesn’t have money to pay." (Girl, 10, NP)

"The big challenge in our school is the pen, crayon etc. If we don’t have these things we are not allowed to come to school. Teachers beat us for that. Our teachers don’t understand that we don’t have money. Our parents and aunts also shout at us when we ask them to buy things for school." (Boy, 10, NP)

"I come from Northern Province. Problems that I have at home are that my parents are not working and they have HIV together with my baby sibling. I have not paid school fees that year, last year and this year. When I was supposed to go to grade 3 they made me repeat grade 2 because I had not found school fees. When they want school fees I go home. They send me home." (16, NP)

"I come from Winterveld. My mother has passed away. I have not paid school fees. At school they say that they are going to chase us away at the end of this month if we have not paid school fees. When we tell my grandmother she says that she does not have money." (9 year old)

"My problem is that I haven’t paid school fees and my mother has passed away. At home it is me, my little sibling, my mother’s elder sister, her husband and Kagiso – my young brother. My aunt sells alcohol. Sometimes when the alcohol has not been bought we sleep with hunger. We do not take a lunch box when we go to school. Sometimes we do not eat in the morning. At school they don’t give me food from the feeding scheme because I have not paid school fees." (11 year old)

ACESS would like to single out access to education as a priority in this area. Our child participation process has clearly shown that children are being denied access to school because they cannot afford school fees, school uniforms or school stationary. The school fee exemption process is clearly not working for children. From our initial research, the system is not working for the following reasons:

Lack of awareness of rights to education: Children and their caregivers do not appear to be aware that they are entitled to free education if they cannot afford the school fees. Many of unaware of the existence of the exemption system and how to go about applying for an exemption. If refused an exemption, many do not know that they can and how to appeal the decision.
Dignity and a desire to pay: Caregivers want to be able to pay for their children's needs and are scrapping together their very last moneys in order to ensure that school fees are paid. If the fees cannot be paid, many children do not go to school in order to avoid the embarrassment of not paying.
Pressure to pay from schools and governing bodies: The exemption systems are not publicised and are often not designed in a way that is accessible to caregivers. Schools and governing bodies are not making it easy for people to apply as the schools are under budgetary constraints for basics such as staff costs, stationary and textbooks.
Discrimination against those who can't pay: Children who can't pay school fees are often discriminated against at school by the teachers. They are not allowed to sit at the desks, are beaten, sent home, refused food or held back grades. The pressure that the discrimination places on the children results in some children preferring to rather not go to school.

ACESS supports the submission by the Law and Transformation Programme at the Centre for Applied Legal Studies, Wits, and recommends:

The abolition of school fees in order for genuine free education to be introduced;
Due to the burdensome costs of education, drawing much needed resources away from other basic necessities in order the fund childrens’ education, that "free education" should include the provision of free school transport services, school books and school uniforms for poor children;
That the issue of subsidisation for poorer schools be looked into so that schools do not have to enforce fees against children who cannot afford to pay school fees, contrary to current policy;
Parliament provides clear policy recommendations in respect of education, particularly in its "policy recommendations to address problems, gaps and inconsistencies of the current social security paradigm for children" in Chapter 7 of the Committee of Inquiry Report (pp. 59-61).


4. SUPPORTING CHILDREN WITH SPECIAL NEEDS

4.1 In addition to an income grant (CSG) and free basic services, ACESS calls for children with special needs to be entitled to an additional cash grant and free and subsidized services for their special needs

The Report recommends that everyone in South Africa should have access to a basic minimum income through the child support grant (0 to 17), Basic Income Grant (adults between 18 and 65) or old age pension (65 onwards).

Furthermore all people must have access to free or subsidized services such as primary and secondary education, lifeline water and electricity, transport, sanitation, primary health care, housing, jobs and skills training.

The Report recommends that adults and children with special needs should be entitled to a cash grant and to free or subsidized special services. When referring to children with special needs, the report refers to children with disabilities, chronic illnesses (including HIV) and children who require placement with foster parents.

The Report is not clear on whether the special grants (DG, CDG and FCG) will be in addition to the universal income grant (CSG, BIG or OAP) or whether children with special needs will receive only a special needs grant. The Report appears to lean in the direction of children with special needs getting the special needs grant only and not the additional amount of the universal income grant (CSG) as well. The costings done by the Committee of Inquiry are based on the recommendation that children with special needs do not receive a greater amount than they are receiving now (except for annual inflation increases).

ACESS calls for children with special needs to be entitled to a special needs grant and special services in addition to their basic income grant (CSG ) and free and subsidized basic services.

4.2 The Care Dependency Grant

4.2.1 ACESS supports the reform of the Care Dependency Grant to include children with moderate disabilities and children with chronic illnesses - including children with HIV.

The Report recommends that children with disabilities and chronic illnesses (including HIV) should be entitled to apply for a disability grant (CDG).

ACESS supports the reform of the Care Dependency Grant to include children with all disabilities and children with chronic illnesses - including children with HIV. This is a recommendation that clearly came from our March 2001 workshop. The reformation of the current care dependency grant to include children with all disabilities (not just severe) and children with chronic illnesses is long overdue.

4.2.2 ACESS supports the recommendation that the assessment procedure for the care dependency grant be reformed from a purely medical model to a needs based process which takes into account the social and environmental factors influencing each applicant.

The Report recommends moving away from a medical based model of assessing disability grant applications. The Report rather recommends that the success of the application should be based on a holistic needs assessment and not on the type or severity of the disability or illness.

ACESS supports this recommendation. Moving from a purely medical model of assessment with an emphasis on type of disability to a needs based assessment is a call that came from our March 2001 workshop and is welcomed.

The Department of Social Development, the HSRC and the South African Federal Council on Disability is currently reworking the disability assessment tool in line with this recommendation. However, ACESS is concerned that the new disability assessment tool in being linked to the current definition of ‘disability’ in the Social Assistance Act, which is extremely narrow. It is important that the effort and resources spent on the new disability assessment tool not be wasted, therefore we recommend that the tool be sufficiently broad and flexible to allow for the incorporation of changes to the current law on disability.
4.2.3 ACESS calls for all children born with HIV to be entitled to apply for the CDG as soon as a health care worker can verify that the child's symptoms indicate HIV positive status

Currently some HIV positive children receive the Care Dependency Grant when they reach the later disabling stages of the illness. In most cases the assistance comes too late as young children with HIV often die quickly if they are not supported with correct nutrition and health care. Therefore their carers should be able to access the CDG earlier in the illness. This should be done through the holistic needs assessment procedure. While an absolute clinical diagnosis is often only possible when the child reaches 18 months of age, a diagnosis can be made based on symptoms and the CDG given to the child's carer within the first 6 months of the child's life.

ACESS calls for the CDG to be made available to all children born with HIV a soon as a health care worker can verify that the child is HIV positive through an analysis of the child's symptoms. The CDG should also be available to all children who acquire HIV from other sources. Access to income support for these children will enable their families to provide them with healthy and nutritious food as a preventative measure against the further deterioration of their health.

4.2.4 ACESS calls for a detailed plan setting out how and when the reforms will be implemented

In order to put the recommendations with regards to the disability grant and care dependency grant into practice, the Report lists a number of short, medium and long term actions that must be taken. We support all of these recommendations. We have presented the steps that need to be taken to put the most important of the recommendations into effect:

4.3 The Foster Child Grant and children in need of alternative family care

4.3.1 ACESS supports the recommendation that the FCG be retained for the purpose of financing temporary placement of children in need of care.

The Report refers to children who have been abused and neglected and children who have been orphaned. The Report recommends that the foster grant should remain for children who are placed with foster parents.

ACESS agrees that the FCG should be for temporary placements for children who do not have care givers and who require alternative placement. Relatives should not be disqualified from being foster parents.

4.3.2 ACESS calls for the court process to be simplified and made more accessible to potential foster parents and children living in rural areas

The Report recommended that the court process should be improved and simplified.

ACESS supports this recommendation. The court process is not accessible to many children and caregivers, especially children living in rural areas and poor areas.

4.3.3 ACESS calls for the immediate extension of the CSG to all children under 18 as the most effective way or supporting caregivers who are caring for children who have been orphaned by HIV, poverty or violence.

The Report is not clear on whether extended family members who are caring for abandoned or orphaned children ("kinship care") should be eligible for the foster child grant. The SALC Report on the Child Care Act Review introduces two types of kinship care grants to provide for these circumstances. While both documents are clear that kinship care needs to be encouraged and financially supported, neither of them give absolute clarity on which categories of caregivers and children will qualify for the FCG and which will qualify only for the CSG.

With the increasing numbers of children being orphaned by poverty, HIV and violence, the current FCG is not be the most appropriate or efficient way of providing financial support to extended family members caring for orphaned children on a permanent basis. Because the grant is court based, requires the child to be removed from the family and is reliant on social workers and social development offices, it is not accessible to the vast majority of families caring for orphaned children. Even if the system is simplified, it is going to take a number of years before all extended families will be able to access the system.

On the other hand, the immediate extension of the CSG to all children under 18 would automatically cover orphaned children in kinship care and provide the much needed financial assistance to their extended family and informal carers.

4.3.4 ACESS calls for the introduction of an adoption subsidy in order to encourage foster parents and relatives caring for children, to adopt the children and provide a permanent home for the children

With regards to encouraging and supporting the adoption of children in need of family care, the report considers the idea of an adoption subsidy but does not indicate whether the Committee was in favour of it or against the idea. It mentions that the purpose of an adoption subsidy is not clear if a universal child grant is introduced.

ACESS recommends that if an extended family has absorbed an orphan child, they should be entitled to apply for a CSG for the child and then to approach the Court for an adoption subsidy if they wish to adopt the child. This will help ensure that children acquire the stability of a permanent home and parent.

4.3.5 ACESS calls for a national consultation with the children's sector to debate the various options surrounding the interplay between the FCG, CSG and an adoption subsidy

Due to the difference in amounts of the CSG, FCG and potential adoption subsidy and the problems that will arise in clearly deciding which grant a care giver qualifies for, ACESS recommends that more consultation with the children's sector be undertaken to debate the various options, in coordination with the Children’s Bill process.


4.4 ACESS support the recommendation that children with disabilities and chronic illnesses be entitled to free and subsidized services for their special needs

4.4.1 Education

Children with disabilities are often forced to attend mainstream schools which have no special teaching capacity because they cannot afford the transport costs and higher school fees charged by the special schools. Particularly in rural areas and the poorer provinces, mainstream schools do not have the staff and capacity to provide education in sign or Braille.

"I think that they should give Deaf children a special class at the school. I am 18 and I want to learn in Sign. I learned Sign at Hammanskraal and there it was all Deaf children. I had to leave there because we had no money. Here they put me with the Grade 1 class and I am with small children – I can learn nothing. I am just reading books. I like to read so much. I read everything but I have a favourite book - I will bring it for you tomorrow – I read this book all the time – it is a dictionary with many pictures. I know the signs for all the words in the dictionary – I read it all the time". (boy with a hearing disability, 18)

"I have a problem because our school ends at Grade 9. I am a Grade 9 learner now and I will have to go to another school. This is a problem because these other schools are expensive. My parents cannot afford to pay a lot of money for school. When we say can’t we have the disability grant now so we can use it to go to school – we are told we must wait until we are 18." (Girl with a physical disability, 14)

ACESS calls for the provision of specialized teaching staff and capacity within mainstream schools and access to free education in special schools for children who cannot afford the school fees.

4.4.2 Transport

Children with physical disabilities struggle to access school, clinics, social development offices and home affairs offices due to public transport being inaccessible to people with physical disabilities and due to the high costs of transport. In rural areas, where the distances to town is long, the transport costs are very high and not affordable.

ACESS calls for accessible and subsidized transport for children with disabilities, particularly in rural areas.


5. CHILDREN IN CRISIS SITUATIONS IN NEED OF IMMEDIATE ASSISTANCE

5.1 ACESS calls for the development of a programme of emergency cash grants, food parcels and vouchers, and services for children in crisis situations

The Report does not address the issue of emergency relief services for children in crisis situations, who have not been able to access social assistance. This category includes children suffering from malnutrition (especially babies who are admitted to health care facilities), children without caregivers (child headed households and street children), and children caring for sick and dying parents.

In view of the fact that currently there are long delays and barriers in accessing the CSG, especially for vulnerable children, the state is failing in its constitutional obligation to provide for those most in need and is open to a Constitutional challenge.

The extension of the CSG and the introduction of a comprehensive social security system is likely to take some time to be put into operation, in the meantime, the state has an immediate obligation to support children and families in crisis.

We therefore suggest that a system be created so that immediate aid can be offered to these children and their families. This could be in the form of food parcels, transport vouchers and/or a cash grant.

Further motivation for this point:

When government social workers, NGO, FBO and CBO workers are called to respond to a child in need, they often find the family living in conditions of extreme poverty. A child care worker working for a Faith Based Organisation in the Northern Province regularly arrives at remote homes in rural areas to find children caring for sick and dying parents or mothers struggling to feed their children. Often, due to lack of financial assistance and the fact that such situations are not isolated, all that the child care worker can do to help, is provide emotional support and transport to and from the clinic.

The following is an extract from the Report on the National Children's Forum on HIV/AIDS which illustrates the above point:

Pumla, 13 year old girl, Tzaneen, Northern Province: "The picture is of my home. The ambulance is fetching my mother. The flower is me. I have to stand tall and protect my mother and my house... My mother had another baby, I looked after my mother till she died then I looked after the baby. It died of starvation."

Report of a care worker in Tzaneen: "Today I have witnessed the devastation of the HIV/AIDS pandemic at the home of a family I visited. They live in a village in the Northern Province of South Africa. It took us 1 hour and 20 minutes to reach their home – through mountains, on very rough roads. The mother died in December 2000, the father has AIDS. He has 5 children. He was retrenched 3 years ago from his work on the mines and all his savings have been spent on medicines for his wife and child. We wanted to take the baby, Pindi, to hospital but were told that we were wasting our time, that they would not keep her. Pumla is 13 years old. She is the eldest child. She nursed her mother during her long illness and now is caring for the baby. Before long, she will also be caring for her father. She cries all the time. She pleaded with me to take the baby so that she could go to school. The children are very small and undernourished for their ages. There is nothing for them to eat when they come home. They have a lot of sores. There is no running water or electricity. Pumla used to feed the baby milk from their goat. They were forced to kill the goat though and the baby has had no milk for days. When I found the family, Pumla was feeding the baby water from a teaspoon"



Without assistance from the state, such organisations struggle to provide families with the necessary food and cash to enable them to survive. While they can assist the families to apply for the child support grant, care dependency grant or foster child grant, these processes take time. In the lives of starving children, especially babies, this time can mean the difference between life and death.

For child headed households the situation becomes even more complicated because children cannot qualify as beneficiaries of any of the grants.

A further example to illustrate the need for temporary emergency social assistance is provided by the Mount Frere incident. Special Assignment highlighted the fact that babies were dying from malnutrition due to their care-givers having no money to buy food for them. While many of them were eligible to apply for the child support grant, various administrative barriers stood in their way.

The Minister visited the area in response to the Special Assignment programme on national TV and expressed an intention to ensure that all babies diagnosed with malnutrition must be given the CSG immediately and that the necessary administration and paperwork can be done later. This however, did not happen, and instead, the provincial Department of Social Development undertook a registration drive to help care-givers apply for the CSG.

While the Department's response is commendable, it is not an approach that they intend to sustain. Future babies in Mount Frere and babies across the country will face the same hurdles as those reported on in Special Assignment unless a country wide approach is taken to improve access to the CSG and to provide temporary relief, especially in rural areas. The Department of Home affairs does not have a plan in place to improve their civic services in order to address the problem of caregivers being unable to easily access their identity documents and the child's birth certificate. Thus this problem is continuing.

Providing these caregivers with temporary social assistance would also assist them to pay the transport costs to and from the offices of Home Affairs and Social Development that they have to incur in the application process for permanent grants.

We therefore recommend that the state provide temporary and emergency social assistance, and clearly describe the circumstances in which it will be made available. We suggest that social workers and child care workers (NGOs, FBOs and CBOs included) should be entitled to fill in application forms for families in crisis and to submit the forms and receive and allocate the assistance to the families that they serve. There is a definite need for such an approach for child headed households in particular and families affected by HIV.

Recipients of emergency aid (temporary grants) must be pro-actively assisted by the Department to apply for permanent grants such as the CSG, CDG or FCG.

The system must be flexible and must not require that applicants have to have bar-coded IDs or birth certificates to access emergency relief.

5.2 ACESS calls for the utilization of the existing social relief of distress grants to provide immediate cash and food aid to children in crisis, especially children living in child headed households or children caring for sick and dying parents.

A temporary grant does exist in the Social Assistance Act (social relief of distress grants) but is not being utilised to its full extent.

The Social Assistance Act provides for social relief of distress grants to be provided for three months as a form of temporary material assistance. In terms of the regulations to the Social Assistance Act, care-givers awaiting permanent grant applications, can apply for and receive the social relief of distress grant in the interim. However, applicants are not aware of this right, officials do not inform applicants of this right, and it appears as if Departmental policy discourages the use of these grants.

Applications for permanent grants such as the CDG or CSG can take time, sometimes 6 to 12 months. If the caregiver or child do not have identity documents and have to apply for these as well, they may wait longer. During the first year of a baby's life, adequate nutrition is essential for his or her development. Care givers who are financially unable to feed their children should be entitled to a temporary grant while they await their identification documents and the finalisation of the grant application.

We recommend the immediate implementation of the following recommendation:

The provision of emergency social relief to families in crisis through using the existing mechanism of social relief of distress grants.

This could be facilitated through issuing a directive to all provincial Departments of Social Development informing them of the need to utilise the existing social relief of distress grants to assist families in crisis.

While the new system is being created, many children are starving and many will die from malnutrition and preventable illnesses. Many children, especially children affected by HIV, do not have birth certificates and their care givers don't have identity documents. A system has to be put in place to ensure that the fact that they do not have numbers and therefore do not fit into the Department's computer system, does not result in them being denied their right to survive and develop.



CONCLUSION

Thank-you for the opportunity to make this submission and we wish Parliament well in its future deliberations on the social security policy reform process. The future stability and prosperity of our nation depends upon the formulation and implementation of a comprehensive social protection programme that can effectively eradicate extreme poverty, diminish economic inequality and lay the foundations for broad-based development.

Such a package should not be cobbled together in a piecemeal fashion.  It requires a systematic approach, beginning with the articulation of a visionary social protection policy that can guide and lend coherence to subsequent legislation.

The Committee of Inquiry's Report represents the first step in this process.  It lays out the issues and proposes possible solutions in the same manner as a Green Paper.  The Committee's recommendations should now be developed into a draft White Paper that can act as a catalyst to a national debate in which all stakeholders can participate fully.  The emerging consensus should then be crystalised in a final White Paper.

This process is vital to the facilitation of popular participation in the formulation of public policy on social security.  Moreover, a clear and comprehensive statement of policy is essential to enable Parliament to exercise effectively its constitutional oversight role.

We therefore urge the Portfolio Committee on Social Development to:

1. Endorse the findings and recommendations of the Committee of Inquiry's report as a first step in the process of policy formation on comprehensive social protection;
2. Articulate its need for a broad and coherent statement of social protection policy prior to the tabling of legislation intended to give effect to that policy;
3. Call on government to expand and extend the national debate on comprehensive social protection by preparing a draft White Paper for public comment;
4. Facilitate broad participation in that debate by convening public hearings on the draft White Paper; and
5. Urge the NCOP to assist by creating opportunities for stakeholders at the provincial level to take part in this debate.