Give a Child a Family Africa aligns with SANCRC’s urgent submission calling for strategic reform to protect and promote children’s rights in South Africa.

Submission: An Urgent Call for the Relocation of the Office on the Rights of the Child (ORC) to The Office of the Presidency

The South African Child Rights Coalition (SANCRC) is a voluntary association of organisations and activists with 126 member organisaton. It is also registered as an NPO with the National Department of Social Development. SANCRC was founded in 2020 with the purpose of providing an effective platform for coordinated and collective advocacy by like-minded civil society organisations and activists to advance the realisation of children’s rights in South Africa.

SANCRC strongly supports the urgent relocation of the Office on the Rights of the Child (ORC) from the Department of Social Development (DSD) to the Office of the Presidency. This position is grounded in principle and evidence, and it reflects our long-standing commitment to ensuring that children’s rights are protected, promoted, and advanced through capable, well-resourced, and accountable structures. The Children’s Consultation meeting held in October 2022,  also made a call for relocation of children’s department back to the Office of the Presidency to ensure that all departmental ministers account under the Office of the Presidency on issues affecting children.

1. Mandate Misalignment and Governance Conflict

The current placement of the ORC within the DSD presents a fundamental conflict of interest. DSD’s core responsibility is the implementation of the Children’s Act through welfare services; functions that are operational, delivery-focused, and resource-intensive. In contrast, the ORC is a transversal policy and oversight mechanism, responsible for cross-government coordination, monitoring, evaluation, and high-level advocacy. Housing both implementation and oversight functions within the same department creates a structural conflict of interest, undermining principles of good governance, institutional independence, and effective accountability. Such structural flaws have already resulted in the erosion of the ORC’s mandate, budget, and human resource capacity.

2. A Presidency-Level Mandate Requires Presidency-Level Authority

Issues affecting children are national priorities that cut across sectors: health, education, social development, justice, policing, housing, and beyond. They require a whole-of-government approach. The Office of the Presidency is uniquely positioned to coordinate this effort, ensure cross-departmental alignment, and hold ministries accountable for delivery. This is particularly urgent in light of South Africa’s worsening child poverty, violence, abuse and neglect, hunger, and exclusion outcomes, many of which have been highlighted in recent United Nations’ Committee on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) and the African Committee of Experts on the Rights and Welfare of the Child’s Concluding Observations. These global treaty bodies have made it clear: South Africa must elevate the ORC to the highest office in the land if it is to meet its domestic and international obligations to children.

3. The NSAAC Strategy and SONA Commitments Must Be Matched With Action

The development of the National Strategy to Accelerate Action for Children (NSAAC), a collective effort between 18 government departments, civil society, and development partners, is a milestone. Its endorsement by the Social Protection, Community and Human Development (SPCHD) Cluster and reference in the 2025 State of the Nation Address reflect strong political will. However, without anchoring the ORC in the Office of the Presidency, the NSAAC risks becoming another unimplemented strategy. The Office of the Presidency must now move beyond rhetoric and enable the institutional mechanisms that will make delivery possible. The ORC, if properly located and resourced, can drive the NSAAC and ensure it leads to tangible improvements in children’s lives.

4. DSD Has Publicly Committed to This Transition

It is deeply concerning that, despite public commitments made by the DSD on multiple international platforms, including the African Union in 2023, to relinquish the ORC, there has been minimal progress. The continued delays in finalising the relocation of the ORC point to either a lack of political will or entrenched bureaucratic resistance. This inertia is unacceptable at a time when millions of children in South Africa are experiencing daily violations of their rights as a result of systemic failure and government inaction.

Notably, at the Pan-African Ministerial Conference in Addis Ababa (May 2023), the Minister of Social Development explicitly acknowledged the need to transition the ORC to a higher-level coordination mechanism. This was followed by South Africa’s commitments at the UN SDG Summit in New York (September 2024), to strengthen multi-sectoral coordination to end violence against children. These undertakings, aligned with the AU Call to Action, carry both political and moral weight and can only be meaningfully implemented if the ORC is relocated to the Office of the Presidency, where it can exercise the authority and cross-sector oversight required to fulfil its mandate.

5. The Moral Imperative: South Africa Must Put Its Children First

The children of South Africa cannot wait. We are witnessing rising malnutrition, school dropout, abuse, neglect and exploitation, and mental health crises. These are not policy failures; they are failures of leadership and coordination. If the President has called for national mobilisation, and if the sector has united behind a common strategy, then the administrative and political machinery must align. Relocating the ORC to the Office of the Presidency is not merely a bureaucratic exercise it is a bold declaration that this country chooses its children.

SANCRC joins the broader children’s sector in calling on:

1. The President to urgently relocate the ORC to the Office of the Presidency and reaffirm this commitment in the upcoming Budget Speech on 10 July;
2. The Department of Public Service and Administration (DPSA) and National Treasury to work with the Office of the Presidency to allocate the necessary human and financial resources to operationalise a fully functional, cross-sectoral ORC;
3. The Minister of Social Development to immediately facilitate this transition and demonstrate commitment to the best interests of the child by supporting a governance structure that promotes transparency, coherence, and accountability;

South Africa’s reputation as a champion of children’s rights hangs in the balance. Let us honour our legal, moral, and developmental commitments by ensuring the ORC is placed where it belongs: at the heart of government.

Duly Signed by:

SANCRC Board Chairperson: M Woodhouse                                                

Date: 09/07/2025

Cell: 082 927 5854

monica@gcf.org.za