Children Speak Out on Poverty: Report on the ACESS Child Participation Process

This 86-page paper reports on consultations conducted by the Alliance for Children’s Entitlement to Social Security (ACESS) to engage children and provide them with the opportunity to influence policy makers who were at the time investigating and making recommendations for a new, improved, and comprehensive social security system for South Africa. ACESS conducted a series of workshops involving children with varied backgrounds and circumstances to get children's perspectives on issues of poverty, survival, and social security. The report suggests that this process confirmed the value of engaging children as partners in decision making, and also highlighted the insights that arise from viewing the short-comings of the social security system from a child’s perspective. The authors argue that children’s participation in policy development and reform should be integral to the process, and not something that is done as an afterthought.

Research with the children pointed to the following concerns:

• Social security is non-comprehensive - The report states that it is clear from the descriptions given by children of their lives that the current social security system is fragmented and non-comprehensive, with many groups of children falling through the gaps.
• Social security is limited - Social security in South Africa is generally limited to direct cash transfers. The workshops gave evidence that children would welcome and benefit from a range of other possibilities such as uniform subsidies, free stationery and books at school, and free services, such as water and electricity to economically poor households, particularly child-headed households.
• Children are resilient - Despite living in dire conditions, many children show resilience, strength, and perseverance. What children know and what they are capable of is never generally taken into account by the adults and policy-makers around them.
• Children have limited knowledge about existing grants - Children’s knowledge of various social security grants is limited to personal experience and proximity to people who receive grants, such as grandparents or siblings with disabilities. Clearly, there is a greater need for educating children about existing grants and other social services that could make a difference in their lives, and ensuring that wider publication of education programmes on social security are designed for and distributed to children.
• There are administrative problems - The children who participated in these workshops gave a comprehensive account of the administrative problems that exist within the social security system. These included the difficulties they and their caregivers face in getting identity documents, birth certificates, and death certificates. Transport was cited as a major challenge.
• Children have ideas about improving social security - Children were open to the idea of indirect social security in the form of feeding schemes (in secondary and primary schools), free uniforms, free services, and transport to school. Most thought that a 'Basic Income Grant' of R100 for everyone would make a significant difference in their lives; and they demonstrated startling levels of maturity in the spending priorities, which included basics such as food, soap, and clothes. The children expressed the desire to have direct access to the adults responsible for administering grants, so that they could report abuses by caregivers. They suggested the establishment of a toll-free line, such as Childline, to enable children to report abuse and get information.

The report concludes that availability of access for children to education, basic services, and food security needs to be addressed with urgency, especially when taking cognisance of the fact that the HIV/AIDS pandemic will increase tenfold the number of vulnerable children in society. A participatory process with children, which involves children and young people thinking for themselves, expressing their views effectively, and interacting in positive ways with others, can suggest some directions for child-sensitive solutions. The authors argue that children have a right to participate in decisions that will shape their future, but also that their participation adds value to the policy-making process.