With the Child Protection Week campaign currently in full swing to raise awareness on upholding the rights of children, mobilising society to protect children against violence, abuse, neglect and exploitation, the Department of Social Development advises South Africans, they have alternative options when they cannot look after their children. 

Since the dawn of democracy, South Africa has made the child protection system to provide for children to be fostered or adopted, to enable children to remain within families. 

Adoption which is viewed as the most permanent placement option for children who are orphaned and vulnerable, remains under-utilised in South Africa and this leaves children for whom there is no immediate alternative care within their extended families exceptionally vulnerable to the long-term effects of institutionalisation.

In terms of section 28 of the Bill of Rights which is chapter two of the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa: “every child has the right to parental and family care or to appropriate alternative care when removed from family care.” 

According to this constitutional provision, Government has a duty to provide alternative care for children whose parents or families cannot exercise their duties of care. 

Section 233 of the Children’s Act also stipulates that if the parent is a child, that child must be assisted by a guardian. 

Adoption is one of the alternative care placement options and forms part of the comprehensive child protection system. 

Currently, South Africa has children who are orphaned due to various reasons like violent crime, Gender Based Violence, HIV/AIDS and the COVID-19 global pandemic which claimed the lives of many people across the world. 

On the other hand, some children are abandoned due to the triple challenges of Poverty, unemployment and inequality which culminate into social multiple social ills including unwanted pregnancy. 

Adoption, therefore, serves as the best possible option or alternative for these children, only if there are no prospects to reunite them with their parent(s) or families. 

Although adoption is a person’s or a family’s choice, it is important to promote adoption services and recruit prospective adoptive parents within the country. 

In South Africa, there are also barriers which prevent people from adopting children, such as cultural obstacles. 

This suggests that there is a need for increased awareness on this tool of child protection. 

South Africans are, therefore, encouraged to look into adoption as one of the child protection measures to increase the number of prospective adoptive parents who are willing to adopt children in need of permanent and stable families.

Between April 2010 and March 2024, the Department of Social Development recorded, 16 593, national adoptions, which is adoption within South Africa. 

On inter-country adoptions, that is adoptions out of the borders of the country, the adoptions Register had 2 239, and this brings a total of registered adoptions to 18 832. 

The Department of Social Development has employed 412 Social Workers registered with the South African Council for Social Service Professionals. 

These Social Workers have been capacitated by the department to provide adoption services.

The Children’s Act also makes provision for foster care as an alternative form of care for children who cannot be cared for by their biological parents. 

Foster care is a court ordered care of a child that needs care and protection, placing the child in a cluster foster care scheme or a suitable person other than a biological parent or a guardian. 

As part of foster care, the Children’s Act introduced the concept of cluster foster care placement which is aimed  to maximise the available resources, strengthening the provision of the foster care services to children including those with special needs within a community based setting.  

Children who are placed in foster care with a valid court order gain access to the package of government services that include therapeutic services, psycho-social support services, education, health care, foster child grant etc. 

The provision of psycho-social support and therapeutic services contributes to child protection by addressing the issues that rendered the children in need of care and protection, thus minimising the negative impact of these issues in the children’s life.

The purpose of foster care is to create an opportunity for children in need of care and protection to live in a protective, nurturing, stable and secure family environment. It requires facilitation of reunification of the child with the parents or other safe and nurturing family relationships that will ensure stability in a child’s life.  

By February 2008 children in foster care were 454,000 (SOCPEN database), as at the end of March 2024 there were 306, 683 children in foster placement receiving foster child grants.

With the introduction of comprehensive legal solution to foster care prompted by the litigation on lapsed foster care orders, the Children’s Amendment Act. 2022 makes a provision to prevent the lapsing of the foster care orders, by enabling the presiding officers to issue interim orders.

The Social Assistance Amendment Act increases access to social assistance to orphaned children in the care of relatives through the Child Support Grant- Top Up.

Media enquiries may be forwarded to Ms Lumka Oliphant on 083 484 8067 or lumkao@dsd.gov.za 

Watch this evening another episode on foster care and adoption at 18:00 on www.dsdtv.org.za