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Social grants not reaching orphans of HIV/AIDS
Lynne Altenroxel. The Star. 30 April 2003. Republished courtesy of Independent Newspapers (Pty) Ltd.
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Sithembiso is just one of thousands of South Africa's estimated half-a-million orphans of HIV/AIDS who need help but aren't getting it.
Since his mother, a domestic worker, died of an AIDS-related illness in September last year, he has relied on the goodwill of others to survive.
Handouts from a neighbour and a charity worker are keeping him alive.
The charity worker gives him food parcels. The neighbour, a fruit-and-vegetable hawker, gives him a meal whenever she can.
Asked how often this happened, his reply was: "Sometimes."
Yet Sithembiso, who dreams of one day becoming a teacher, drags himself to primary school every day. He cooks for himself when he has food, does the laundry in the afternoons and most of his housework on Saturdays.
Like most orphans of HIV/AIDS, he cannot access the government's child support grants due to a technicality - the R160 a month can only be paid out to a so-called "primary adult care-giver" who has to be at least 21 years of age.
Older siblings are also often too young to legally foster their brothers and sisters in order to obtain the R500-a-month foster care grant. Foster parents, too, have to be at least 21.
This means that, despite social grants being available, the overwhelming majority of orphans in child-headed households are unable to receive them.
The statistics are frightening. According to Idasa, 14,3 million children under the age of 18 live on less than R400 a month. Of these, only 15 percent receive a child-support grant.
Another indication comes from the Mpumalanga-based Topsy Foundation, which cares for 3 555 people infected or affected by HIV/AIDS. Only six percent of the people on their files who are eligible for social grants are getting them.
"The grant take-up in general is shocking - and the people who are the most vulnerable are not getting it," said Karen Kallmann, an advocacy worker at the Black Sash.
"Basically, orphans aren't accessing social assistance."
Current law makes it legal for an 18-year-old to vote or go to war, and for a 16-year-old to own a firearm. However, the government is adamant that social grants intended for child-headed households must be paid to an "adult" of at least 21 years old.
"We still feel that an adult is very important in the equation," said Fezile Makiwane, deputy director-general in the department of social development. "It's very uncomfortable for a child of 10 or 11 to look after other children. We think these children have suffered enough and don't need to suffer further."
His department, he said, wanted non-governmental organisations and church groups to become the primary care-givers responsible for accepting social grants on behalf of households headed by children in their care.
Last week, the government downplayed a South African Human Rights Commission report which stated that orphans of HIV/AIDS were frequently unable to access social grants.
"Children in child-headed households have not been in a position to initiate the process of applying for child-care grants because they do not have the assistance of adults," the report stated. "HIV/AIDS orphans are in most instances not provided with the traditional support and protection."
Sithembiso is one of those orphans of HIV/AIDS. And even though one of the social services he is entitled to access is free schooling, he has still not been given his latest school report because he has no money to pay his fees. |
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