Chapter 7. Proposed action – by circumstances increasing likelihood of harm

Chapter 7. Proposed action – by circumstances increasing likelihood of harm

7.1HIV/AIDS

HIV/AIDS can impact on child labour through two routes, either through its effect on households and communities, raising the probability of a child becoming a child labourer, or by raising the risks associated with child labour in general and sexual exploitation specifically.

The impact on households and communities can be devastating and may exert strong pressure for the involvement of children in work activities. This is particularly true in cases where children are orphaned by the disease. A recent study by the University of Cape Town estimates that the number of children who will have lost one or both parents to AIDS will peak in South Africa around 2014-2015, with 5,7 million children having lost one or both parents.¹ International research suggests that when orphans in the developing world constitute up to 2% of the child population, the children are generally absorbed into the extended family and community. In South Africa the percentage of orphans is expected to increase to between 9-12% of the child population by 2015. Where these children are taken into homes in the community, they may also be required to work for excessive hours, or to do other work inappropriate for their age within the household.

As the disease progresses in an individual, he or she will be less able to support his or her dependents. Thus, even before the parent suffering from AIDS dies children may effectively be orphans in economic terms since they are forced to care for the parent as well as having to support themselves on their own. Thus, children’s basic survival is likely to come under increasing threat as HIV/AIDS claims more and more South African parents.

The impact on children of the HIV/AIDS pandemic extends further than the impact on children’s families and households. Children’s access to education, for example, is likely to be negatively impacted as the disease spreads, infecting more teachers. Here, government’s challenge is also to ensure that the higher education system is able to produce teachers at a fast enough pace to replace those teachers who are sick or dying from AIDS-related diseases. Other countries in Southern Africa have already encountered this problem. In Zambia, for example, in 1998, teacher deaths totalled two-thirds of the number of newly graduated teachers. HIV/AIDS infected and affected teachers may also be forced to miss work due to their own or relatives’ illness, negatively impacting on the quality of education received by schoolchildren.

HIV/AIDS will result in an increase in the number of child-headed households. The children in these households need income, and many will work unless there are other forms of assistance. At present the main forms of assistance come from over-stretched communities and NGOs. Current policy prevents such households from accessing the child support and other grants.

Children affected by HIV/AIDS are likely to become more vulnerable over time, and it is likely that their vulnerabilities will be exploited by some in the community, sometimes under the guise of helping them.

In households where there are adults affected by HIV/AIDS, we can expect an increase in the incidence of children having to care for terminally ill people, and having to earn an income because breadwinners are ill or have died. This reduces their ability to further their education. It may also expose them to serious risks, such as where they are forced by circumstance to work on the streets or sell sexual favours.

To aggravate matters, the existing formula for allocating equitable share funds to provinces is based partly on the number of children within the age range in which children are expected to complete compulsory education. Many children may start school late or interrupt their schooling because of HIV/AIDS. This means the state will not pay a full contribution towards their first nine years of education. Schools require that children falling outside the age of compulsory education pay full fees, because the prohibition against excluding children from school due to non-payment of fees applies only to those still subject to compulsory education.

HIV/AIDS, and children infected and affected by the pandemic, were raised as priority issues at six of the provincial consultative workshops. The government's programme is to encourage orphaned, abandoned or impoverished children affected by HIV/AIDS to remain in their homes and communities, with the understanding that they will receive appropriate care and assistance, including education.

The National DE has embarked on the training of teachers and life skills coordinators to address the issue at a curriculum level. Audits of orphans and counselling are other important projects that the DE is embarking on. There is a widespread awareness campaign related to this issue at both provincial and national level.

The national DSD has developed detailed National Guidelines for Social Services to Children Infected and Affected by HIV/AIDS. Unfortunately, the document contains little, if anything, on child labour or child work.