Recent oversight visits to specialised schools for children with disabilities in Gauteng brought together government departments, oversight bodies, and civil society organisations to engage directly with the realities facing children who require specialised educational support.

Oversight engagements are an important part of strengthening public systems. They allow stakeholders to move beyond policy discussions and engage with lived experience — the daily realities of children, educators, caregivers, and families navigating complex support environments.

South Africa has made important progress in affirming the right of children with disabilities to access education. Legal and policy developments in recent years have reinforced that children cannot be excluded from schooling because systems are underprepared or under-resourced. This represents a meaningful step forward in protecting dignity, equality, and inclusion.

However, engagement at school level also highlights a more complex challenge.

Many specialised schools operate as boarding facilities because therapeutic and educational services remain centralised. For many families, this is not a choice between home and school, but a choice between access and exclusion. Parents often make difficult decisions to ensure their children receive the support they need to learn and develop.

Over time, however, distance can create unintended consequences.

Economic pressure, transport challenges, caregiver fatigue, and the absence of community-based disability support can reduce family contact. Schools increasingly carry responsibilities beyond education, becoming long-term care environments rather than purely educational institutions. In some cases, children experience prolonged separation from family and community despite the original intention being educational access.

This reality should not be understood simply as parental neglect. More often, it reflects systemic gaps in how support services are structured.

From a child protection perspective, the focus must move beyond placement alone. The question is not only whether children are in school, but whether systems support children to remain connected to family, identity, and community while receiving education.

At Johannesburg Child Welfare, our work consistently demonstrates that children achieve better developmental and emotional outcomes when families are supported rather than replaced. Strengthening family preservation services, supporting caregivers, and developing community-based environments where children with disabilities can safely participate in everyday childhood experiences are essential components of sustainable inclusion.

This includes creating safe, offline community spaces where children can play, socialise, and develop outside institutional settings and away from the risks increasingly associated with unregulated online environments.

Oversight engagements reinforce an important national lesson: inclusion cannot be measured only by access to institutions. True inclusion exists when children are able to learn, grow, and remain connected to the relationships and communities that shape their identity.

South Africa has made important progress in securing rights through policy and the courts. The next phase requires equal attention to implementation — ensuring that education, social development, and community-based services operate together to support both children and families.

If we get this right, we move beyond compliance and toward genuine inclusion.

Tags

Child Protection

Disability Inclusion

Family Preservation

Special Education

Policy & Advocacy

Related JCW Work

Lalela Centre for Children’s Healing

Community-based prevention programmes

Children living with disabilities

At Joburg Child Welfare, we are honoured to have our voice and mission amplified by media platforms committed to raising awareness about child protection. These articles spotlight our advocacy work and urgent calls for action to ensure every child is safe, supported, and heard. Click below to read how JCW is making headlines in the fight against child abuse.

The Citizen – Child Protection Week: Growing Calls for Tougher Sentences for Child Abuse Offenders

Gauteng.net – Child Protection Week: Joburg Child Welfare Demands Harsher Sentences for Child Abuse

A seven-year-old child was sexually assaulted at her school in South Africa. 

This should never have happened not in a country with constitutional protections for children, not in a system that promises early intervention, and not in a province with formal safeguarding structures.

But it did happen. And we need to be honest about why.

This child was not failed in isolation. She was failed by local systems that continue to underinvest in child protection, that leave schools without clear safeguarding protocols, and that do not act with urgency when red flags are raised.

She was also failed by international partners who withdrew critical funding without sufficient notice. When USAID issued its stop order, Joburg Child Welfare along with others in the sector, lost the ability to operate our post-violence care programme under PEPFAR support. The result: fewer medical assessments, delayed trauma counselling, and enormous pressure on our stretched teams.

And yet, we did not walk away.

Since the stop order came into effect, Joburg Child Welfare has used its own internal resources to ensure services continue across Johannesburg. In March alone:

      •     376 survivors received post-violence support for emotional and physical abuse (up from 348 the previous month),

      •     210 sexual violence cases were managed across our sites,

      •     49 suspected sexual violence cases were referred for further medical or forensic investigation,

      •     19 newly diagnosed individuals were linked to ART and HIV care,

      •     69 medical reports were completed and referred to the Department of Social Development.

These are not just statistics. They represent children and families whose futures hang in the balance.

Despite constrained funding, we have taken bold steps to keep this safety net in place. In the past month, I met with the Minister of Health, Dr. Aaron Motsoaledi, and his Deputy Director-General to explore sustainable mechanisms to ensure continued emergency medical support and services for survivors of gender-based violence. We are seeking a coordinated response—not another siloed solution.

South Africa does not lack policy. We have some of the most progressive child protection legislation in the world. What we lack is accountability, coordination, and leadership.

International donors must also move beyond transactional relationships. Child protection is not a procurement line. When funding is pulled without consultation, the safety of real children collapses in real time.

We are calling on the Department of Social Development, the Department of Basic Education, the SAPS Family Violence Units, and our donor partners to re-centre the child. Not the budget. Not the process. The child.

At Joburg Child Welfare, our mission is clear:

We will continue to protect children.

We will continue to respond to abuse.

We will continue to speak up—even when it’s uncomfortable.

Because silence is complicity.

And children like the one assaulted at her school deserve better from all of us.

Abubakr Hattas CEO, Joburg Child Welfare

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