10 Jul 2024

Tsabong District Child Protection Committee, which has not been functional for some time, has regrouped to combat increasing social ills against children.

Speaking during the committee’s training organised by Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development in partnership with Marang Child Care Network Trust on Tuesday, Tsabong District Council’s Principal Social Welfare Officer, Ms Masego Kgomotso, said they were concerned about child defilement cases which were on the rise in the district.

Therefore, she said, it was important to unpack the role played by each service provider to ensure efficiencies in dealing with children’s issues. Currently, the committee has been inundated with 153 cases concerning children in the district, all duly referred to social workers by both the police and the magistrate’s court.

The prevalent ones were defilement cases involving under age children, where 91 cases were recorded, 14 cases were on cruel treatment of children, 13 were rape cases, as well as 15 child negligence cases.

She acknowledged a concerning gap in their data, indicative of potentially numerous unreported cases.

Ms Kgomotso explained that their assessments revealed that the increasing defilement cases were caused by various factors such as prevalence of child headed households where it was discovered that some parents worked in cattle farms and neglected their children.

Moreover, she said, some parents spent most of their time recklessly drinking alcohol which left their children alone.

She said it was critical to resuscitate child protection committees to deal with these social ills and mobilise child protection service providers from different government departments and civil organisations to regroup.

She admitted that the district child protection committee had not been functional for some time while the village child protection committees were active adding that they could only be strengthened if the main district committee was capacitated and functional.

Mr Tebogo Rapalai, the acting deputy council secretary (operations) for the Kgalagadi District Council, said cases that involved children were gradually increasing, which required immediate action hence the need to capacitate relevant key stakeholders.

He said at the forefront of the battle was social and community development officers who dealt with such cases almost daily, hence the need to capacitate them and all stakeholders to ensure role clarity targeted at reducing the incidence.

A representative from Marang Child Network Trust, Ms Boitumelo Nkwe, said it was critical to resuscitate committees to deal with child protection.

She said government demonstrated commitment towards protection of children’s rights as the country had signed various accords.

Thus, she said, it was necessary to track progress on implementation and law enforcement.

She added that Children’s Act of 2009 detailed formation of children protection committees, as well as formulations of children’s consultative forums thus it was important to ensure that implementation was done.

Ms Nkwe said there were protocols and guidelines in place to ensure implementation and therefore must be acted on accordingly.

She said following the establishment of new district councils by upgrading sub district councils, it became critical to regroup in line with implementation of children’s committees and children’s for a to ensure adequate representation and committee formations.

She called for implementation to be done with mindset change in mind, to do things differently to reduce potential harm, abuse and exploitation of children.

All 21 districts nationwide must form the committee chaired by district commissioner’s office, heads of department as well as village leadership. ENDS