Pretoria – Social Development Minister Bathabile Dlamini has warned that communities cannot keep accepting the abuse of children, by parents and teachers.
“Teachers must not have sexual relations with school children and our communities need to stand up against this behaviour by men who are meant to guide and mentor our children,” said Minister Dlamini.
Minister Dlamini raised this during the launch of Child Protection Week in Kokstad on Sunday. The national theme for Child Protection Week is “Working Together to Protect Children”.
Children gathered at the launched asked the Minister if government could help them by educating their parents on parenting skills.
“Government can help us by running educational campaigns to teach parents how to treat children because many of them do not know how to. When our parents make us go with them drinking, it exposes us to alcohol and tempts us to start drinking as well,” said children from the audience.
Minister Dlamini warned that “an even bigger danger of exposing children to alcohol is that, if they start experimenting with it, they usually go on to experiment with drugs and eventually become drug addicts, with serious consequences for society”.
The department is currently rolling out a parenting skills programme – Active Parenting of Teenagers, which is aimed at highlighting the challenges facing parents of teenagers.
The programme also explores the stage of adolescent and its dynamics; assists parents in understanding their teenagers; enables parents to deal better with the challenges of raising teenagers; as well as highlights a support system that can be accessed by parents.
The problem of bullies was also raised. According to the children, bullies are created in homes by parents.
A child from the audience said “bullies are abused in their homes and as a result they want to abuse other children at school… parents must stop abusing children because it creates problems for other children in school”.
Government has urged all South Africans to wear Green Ribbons during Child Protection Week to show support for promotion of the rights, care and protection of the child. – SAnews.gov.za
