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The Children’s Bill,
the new draft law that will replace the 1983 Child Care Act, contains a
chapter on parenting rights and responsibilities. As part of a series of
workshops to be held on the bill this year, the Children’s Institute
hosted a workshop in February to test the proposed new parenting rights
and responsibilities provisions against real life scenarios affecting
children and their caregivers.
Case studies were used to look at six scenarios:
- Children living in the care of relatives
- Child-headed households
- Children who have been abandoned
- Children in foster care
- Children’s inheritance rights and care
arrangements when parents die
- Consent to medical treatment for children
not living with their parents
Five common themes emerged from the workshop:
- The bill is not clear on what court has
jurisdiction to decide applications to acquire or terminate parental
rights. Workshop participants preferred that the bill clearly state that
the Children’s Court must be able to decide such matters, to ensure that
the law is made accessible to the majority of children in South Africa.
- Absent fathers appeared in many of the
scenarios. While it was clear that these fathers’ rights and
responsibilities existed in theory, they were not being exercised in
practice. As it is in the best interests of children to receive the care
and support of both parents, the bill needs to look more carefully at
how this can be achieved and how this is balanced against the parental
rights and responsibilities of a granny or aunt who is de facto
taking care of the child’s daily needs.
- It was recommended that all provisions
relating to parenting rights and responsibilities should be incorporated
into the parenting rights chapter because the provisions dealing with
parenting rights appear in different places in the bill and this leads
to confusion.
- It was unclear how the bill and customary
law will complement each other, especially in relation to the rights and
responsibilities of relatives caring for children, and the inheritance
rights of children upon the death of a parent. Greater clarity is needed
in this regard.
- Children’s property rights need greater
protection when parents die. Little protection exists currently in law
and in practice to safeguard children’s rights to their home and social
insurance policies.
To order a copy of the forthcoming
workshop report, please contact
Charmaine Smith. |
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