Childline South Africa is committed to developing appropriate social services including a 24 hour toll free helpline and supportive therapeutic social services for children who have been victims of violence, and their families, education and awareness raising programmes facilitating the prevention of violence against children, networking to establish strategic alliances with the aim of advocating for policy changes that will facilitate good management practices for abused children, research into violence against children within the South African Context, ongoing training and development of staff members and volunteers.
Executive Summary
Community Based Organisations differ markedly in their availability, services and structure from province to province.
South Africa has 11 official languages. The home languages spoken by children differ markedly across the provinces and when children are in need or crisis it is essential that children are responded to in their own language.
The Childline toll free number receives approximately 55,000 calls per month across all the provinces. It is essential to avoid a call centre that is so busy that children do not receive the quality attention that is required. Each regional office, apart from the Crisis Line and Prevention and Education Services offers a different "Basket" of services according to regional need and the availability of resources both human and material, to provide such services.
The crisis line serves the entire country, even the provinces in which there is no regional office. Childline South Africa plans to develop a branch in the Northern Cape Province.
Gina is 12 years old and her Mom had died the previous year. She found it really hard to concentrate at school as she kept remembering how much her Mom had suffered before she died. One day Gina found it very hard to focus in class. As a result she was physically abused by her teacher at school – on one occasion so badly that she required stitches in her head from the local hospital. Her father, Sipho, laid charges at the local police station and found out that the teacher had abused other children in the class – also very severely.
