27 May 2018

Kanye Administrative Authority (KAA) has formed a committee whose mandate is to ensure that the rights of children are protected.

A social worker, Ms Lebogang Kooneeng said the committee was called Kanye Administrative Authority Child Protection committee.

The committee deals with various groups of children among them abandoned children, children living with disability, sexually abused children and children engaged in drugs and many others.

A child, she said, did not only belong to their biological parents, but the community in its totality.

She also said throughout the Southern District there was a tendency by some parents to leave children alone, saying it had the potential to expose such children to social ills.

Moreover, Ms Kooneeng said families were not united like they used to be, making it difficult for other extended family members to play their part in the development of a child.

She also added that when parents die, relatives opted to take their children to foster care homes instead of assuming the parental role to groom such children.

She said there was a difference between a child raised at home and the one raised at a foster care home.

She said when children were raised in their homes they learned to be independent and also to bond with their family members than the ones at the centre.

Children raised at the centre ended up having challenges of adapting to the home environment when they returned.

She said that it takes a loving, patient and caring individual to take part in the programme.

Ms Kooneeng pleaded with parents to involve children in all the decisions they took that affected them. ENDS