Researchers in Public Law and Jurisprudence
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Browsing by Subject "Child-headed households"
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Item Cluster foster care: a panacea for the care of children in the era of HIV/Aids or an MCQ?(Stellenbosch University (SUNJournals), 2010) Gallinetti, Jacqui; Sloth-Nielsen, JuliaThe ravages wrought by HIV/AIDS on child-care arrangements in the African context are well documented (Richter & Sherr, 2009; Sloth-Nielsen & Mezmur, 2008; Tsegaye, 2007; sources cited there). Notably, these constitute the breakdown of traditional kinship structures which would ordinarily have accommodated orphans and other vulnerable children, a decrease in the capacity of existing extended family structures to care for the numbers of children requiring alternative care, and the emergence of child-headed households. The topic of child-headed households, too, has emerged as a key concept in international child rights law (Couzens & Zaal, 2009; Sloth-Nielsen, 2004; Sloth-Nielsen in Skelton & Davel, 2010; UN Committee on the Rights of the Child (UNCROC), General Comment No. 3 on HIV/ AIDS and the rights of the child, 2003), and this phenomenon has been directly related to the onset of the pandemic.Item Too little? Too late? The implications of the Grootboom case for state responses to child-headed households(University of the Western Cape, 2003) Sloth-Nielsen, JuliaThe article begins with an overview of the socio-economic context surrounding child-headed households and then discusses the constitutional obligations that rest on the state vis-a-vis children growing up in these settings. Considering the scope of the state's obligation where the parents of children below the age of 18 are deceased or unable to render parental care as well as the emerging constitutional recognition of the right to family life, it is concluded that the state must ensure that children living in child-headed households are integrated into some form of family environment. Against this background the state's articulated policy on the situation of child-headed households is examined and its reasonableness is assessed. Noting various shortcoming in the policy, it is suggested that failure of the government's HIV/AlDS programmes to prioritise emergency relief would constitute a contravention of the Grootboom principles. The constitutional rights of children living in child-headed households are thus not adequately protected by the existing policy framework.