Charlotte Maxeke Academic Hospital stresses the importance of children’s rights
National Child Protection Week aimed to raise awareness of children's rights was established in 1997.
Charlotte Maxeke Academic Hospital’s pediatric ward observed Child Protection Week from May 30 until June 7, to raise awareness about child abuse and neglect.
According to the South African News Agency, National Child Protection Week (CPW) is observed in South Africa annually to raise awareness of children’s rights as articulated in the Children’s Act of 2005.
The campaign began in 1997 and aimed to mobilise all sectors of society to ensure that children are cared for and protected.
A green ribbon is worn during Child Protection Week to show support for the promotion of the rights, care, and protection of the child.
The green ribbon was adopted by the National Child Protection Committee in 2004:
- The green refers to life and growth.
- Wearing the green ribbon shows care and support Child Protection Week.
- The green ribbon lets victims and survivors know they are not alone.
- The green ribbon emphasises the importance of partnerships to tackle child abuse, neglect, and exploitation.
Social work supervisor Winnie Mathivah said the campaign was observed in all nine provinces yearly.
“As healthcare workers, we are raising awareness within the communities we serve and for them to understand and know children’s rights. Throughout the week we had different themes where we addressed child abuse and neglect; we also analysed the statistics throughout the hospital and we saw that we have a high rate of burns.”
Mativah added that the campaign aimed at educating parents as to how they could ‘child proof’ the environment to reduce child neglect and abuse.
Head of the Teddy Bear Clinic Dr Efrat Barnes commended the Constitution, “We have a robust Constitution that we can be proud of because it was our Constitution that insisted that children have rights.”
Barnes noted that although the campaign was about child abuse and neglect, the hospital focused on child burns.
“One of the trends we are seeing is that some families do not have running hot water and resort to buckets with electrical currents. Children either burn or drown in these buckets and we saw this happen only in winter but our social workers noted that the burns were becoming frequent in summer as well.”
The social work supervisor concluded that the campaign aimed to educate parents as to how they could ‘child proof’ their environments at home to reduce child neglect and abuse. The day was also aimed at remembering children who were lost to burns as a result of child abuse.
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