since July 2010

Authors | Paula Proudlock, Katharine Hall ¹

Children’s Right to Social Security and Social Assistance

The South African Constitution, in Section 27 (1) (c) of the Bill of Rights, says that “everyone has the right to have access to … social security including, if they are unable to support themselves and their dependants, appropriate social assistance”. This right is also recognised in a range of international human rights instruments, including the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights of 1966 (Articles 9, 10 and 11) and the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child of 1989 (Article 27).

The Bill of Rights places a duty on the State to respect, protect, promote and fulfil the right to social security. This means that the State must take positive steps to ensure that the right is realised. In particular, Section 27 (2) obliges the government to take reasonable measures, within its available resources, to achieve the progressive realisation of the right.

What this means is that the State must have a clear plan to achieve the progressive realisation of the right. This plan must include a policy, a legal framework and various programmes aimed at giving effect to the right. It must be designed and implemented reasonably – most importantly, it must not leave out a significant proportion of the population, especially not those people who are vulnerable and in desperate need.

The right to social security includes the right to social insurance and social assistance. With regards to social insurance, the government is obliged to regulate private insurance schemes and create and control public insurance schemes so that people can take out private insurance or benefit from public insurance funds if they are injured at work, become unemployed, need maternity benefits, or suffer injury in a road accident. These are called ‘contributory schemes’ because the person or the person’s employer makes a monthly contribution to the scheme.

Social assistance is when the State provides support directly to a person to help them to provide for their needs, usually in the form of cash grants. Social assistance schemes are normally ‘non-contributory’ schemes in that the person does not make any contribution to the scheme.

In terms of the right to social assistance, the government is obliged to support parents or caregivers to care for their children if they are not able to support them adequately due to poverty, or where children have special care needs. The fundamental purpose of the right to social assistance is to ensure that persons living in poverty are able to access a minimum level of income, which is sufficient to meet basic subsistence needs, so that they do not have to live below minimum acceptable standards.

The government has responded to this duty mainly through the Social Assistance Act, which provides a range of social grants for vulnerable groups of people, namely the aged, children and people with disabilities.

Social grants make up the South African government’s main poverty alleviation programme and the Child Support Grant is government’s primary child poverty alleviation programme.

This web site monitors three social grants for children. The first is the most important poverty alleviation mechanism for children – the Child Support Grant. It has a value of R240 per person per month (as of April 2009), and is given to caregivers of children on the basis that the caregivers have very low incomes or no incomes at all. Eligibility for this grant is closely related to the levels of income poverty and caregivers have to pass an income or means test to prove that they do not have an adequate income.

The second grant aimed at children is called the Care Dependency Grant, and it is given to the caregivers of children who are severely disabled and who need permanent care. It has a value of R1,010 per month (as of April 2009), and the grant is also income or means tested.

The third grant is called the Foster Child Grant, which was designed to support foster parents who have had children placed in their care by the Children’s Court because the children have suffered abuse or neglect. This grant has a value of R680 per month (as of April 2009). It is increasingly being used to provide extra income for relatives and other people caring for children who have lost a parent or parents through violence, HIV/AIDS or other diseases.

Take-up of the Child Support Grant
This indicator reflects the number and proportion of eligible children, from birth to 13 years, receiving the Child Support Grant (CSG).

Take-up of the Care Dependency Grant
The number of children who are accessing the Care Dependency Grant (CDG).

Take-up of the Foster Child Grant
This indicator reflects the number of children receiving the Foster Child Grant (FCG).

¹ Children's Institute