In his latest letter to the nation, President Cyril Ramaphosa urged the strengthening of collective resolve to ensure that every child has a safe, caring and nurturing childhood, noting government’s progress in realising the right to education.

National Children’s Day is celebrated on the first Saturday of November, which is the month in which the Convention on the Rights of the Child was adopted by the United Nations in 1989.

Ramaphosa said government had made the most progress in implementing the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child in respect of the right to education.

“As the UN Children’s Fund has noted: Since 1994 South Africa has made great strides in realising the right to education, rapidly building an efficient, accessible and quality education system for children and adolescents,” he said.

He pointed out that at the advent of democracy, only half of all six-year-olds went to school.

“…now there is almost universal school enrolment for learners from 6 to 15 years. The number of no-fee schools has grown significantly. Three out of four learners are exempted from paying fees,” he said.

Ramaphosa highlighted that more than 1.5-million children across the country were enrolled in Early Childhood Development programmes as a critical preparation for their entry into formal schooling.

He pointed out that to ensure children’s right to survival, government had implemented free primary health care for children under six, free basic services to poor families and child support grants.

He noted the school nutrition programme, which he said had made a “significant difference” in improving the educational and health outcomes for millions of children from indigent families.

“To advance the right of children to protection from abuse, neglect and exploitation, we have passed laws outlawing child labour, corporal punishment and child marriages,” he added.

Ramaphosa highlighted that government had a prescribed minimum sentencing regime for cases involving the sexual abuse of children.

“During the sixth democratic administration, we strengthened the legal regime to expand the definition of sexual offences against children, improve our capacity to combat child trafficking, and introduced more stringent conditions for the registration of sex offenders,” he explained.

Recently, there have been a number of criminal cases involving children being trafficked into the sex trade, raped, murdered and subjected to abuse – often by those closest to them.

Ramaphosa pointed out that the number of recent criminal cases of this type was a stark reminder that progressive legislation must be matched by social and other forms of support.

“…these efforts must capacitate caregivers and offer greater protection to vulnerable children in particular,” he said.