NAVIGATING COMPLEXITIES OF CHILDREN IN CONFLICT WITH THE LAW

By Cuma Pantshwa

• Social workers face challenges caring for children in conflict with the law.These young people often carry deep trauma and require specialized support. 
• A workshop is underway to address this issue,focusing on improving secure care centers and developing effective rehabilitation programs. 
• Participants aim to identify gaps in current practices and create solutions that break the cycle of reoffending.

Children in conflict with the law and in secure care centres, present a unique set of challenges for social workers.

These children, often with traumatic experiences, require specialized care and support to address their complex needs. Before democracy, they were not protected by the country’s legislation. However, when President Nelson Mandela took office in 1994, he ordered the release of the children who were incarcerated by the apartheid government and called this “Project GO”.

The protection of children in conflict with the law then became one of the country’s priorities, even though there was neither a system nor legislation in place to protect these children.

“I would now like to say that the Government will, as a matter of urgency, attend to the tragic and complex question of children and juveniles in detention and prison.

The basic principle from which we will proceed from now onwards is that we must rescue the children of the nation and ensure that the system of criminal justice must be the very last resort in the case of juvenile offenders. I have therefore issued instruction to the Departments concerned, as a matter of urgency, to work out the necessary guidelines which will enable us to empty our prisons of children and to place them in suitable alternative care,” Mandela said.

Because there was no law looking after these children, the Department of Social Development and Department of Justice established an interim  protocol to manage the children as the first procedure to guide and protect the manner of dealing with these children.

The protocol paved a way for legislative mandates and the reform of the Child Care Act to the Children’s Act of 2005 and 2007 and later the development of Child Justice Act of 2008.

“Today we are here to identify gaps and sift out the issues in our secure care centres. We want to find these anomalies and craft solutions that will help us deal with the children of today’s needs. We acknowledge that the policy of 2010 was developed parallel to the Children’s Amendment of 2007 and other Amendments of the Children’s Act to respond to an urgent gaps then. That policy has served its purpose and we must come out of these sessions now with new plans” explained Ms Linda Makhathini, Social Work Policy Manager at the department of social development. Makhathini was addressing a two day workshop of secure centre managers currently taking place in Johannesburg.

Makhathini mentioned that the children’s Act and the child justice are the two legislations that provide for the protection of the children in conflict with the law.

Social workers, secure centre managers and coordinators have gathered for this consultation session to review the Department of Social Development’s Blueprint, Norms and Standards for secure centres.

The delegates had breakaway sessions and started looking at the current situation especially issues faced by social workers in these facilities and in communities.

The unifying theme was: “The landscape has changed!” They agreed that children  were no longer committing petty crimes such as shoplifting and housebreaking.

Today, children are abusing elders, raping other children, hijacking and committing murders. Often secure managers also become guardians of these children as they are in the custody of DSD and their parents reject them wanting nothing to do with the child due to poverty or fear,” said Steven Maselesele from DSD, Social Crime Prevention unit.

In line with the current findings of 2022 on secure care assessment by Human Rights as National Preventative Mechanism of Optional Protocol to the Convention against Torture, Cruel, inhuman, Degrading Treatment or Punishment (OPCAT) to persons deprived of liberty which highlighted 10 critical areas in themes, the groups tackled each area highlighting the challenges faced by social workers and concluding with a solution that will form part of the recommendations at the end of the sessions.

The areas are: basic care, safety, dignity, management of challenging behaviour, treatment and development of children and youth, provision of education to children with learning barriers, vocational training, the facility infrastructure that is not compliant, lack of preparedness for pandemics or crisis, registration of facilities and developmental quality assurance.

With a deep understanding of the complexities faced by social workers, the delegates actively engaged in brainstorming innovative solutions for the future, reviewed the Children’s Act and identified the areas in need for policy changes in line with the rights of the child.

Additions that will be reviewed and explored as the workshop progresses are matters of language barriers, persons who can visit the child, technology and the risks involved with external communication, as well as education and behavioural programmes amongst others.

The workshop continues tomorrow and recommendations will be consulted then be gazetted for further consultation.

Side Bar (Childrens’ Act + Child Justice Act)

• The Children’s Act provides for the establishment of Secure Care Facilities for placement and a secure care programme to rehabilitate the children in conflict with the law.
• In these centres, there is in each, a multi-disciplinary team consisting of Mental Health Professionals, Educators and Social Service Professionals who provide services to children in conflict with the law for holistic intervention and as required by legislation, Norms and Standards in these Secure Care Centres.
• The Child Justice Act provides for the placement of the children in Secure Care and protects them from being detained together with the adults. The Act further orders placement both for awaiting trial and sentenced children in a Secure Care rather than prison, and the implementation of Child Justice Act is published annually.
• The Children’s Act, Child Justice Act and International Instruments are key pieces of legislation that compliments and protect the children in conflict with the law. International Instruments include United Convention on the Rights of the Child and Optional Protocol to the Convention against Torture, Cruel, Inhuman, Degrading Treatment, or Punishment.