SPEAK OUT

Politics
Closing specialised sexual offences units
Joan van Niekerk, Childline, December, 2006

...................THE “MIGRATION” OF THE FCS SERVICES

Several years ago South African Child protection workers reacted with a united front to rumours that the Child Protection Units were to be disbanded. Petitions were drawn up, signatures solicited and appeals were made in the press and in public forums for this plan to be abandoned. South African Police Services repeatedly reassured the child protection field that this was indeed a rumour and that the disbanding of the Child Protection, Family Violence and Sexual Offences units would not occur.

In early 2006 the rumours reappeared. In May 2006, a meeting was organised by the Institute of Security Studies in Pretoria with various role-players in the child protection field and the Senior Management Officials of the Department of Safety and Security to discuss the situation.

At this meeting senior officials from the Department of Safety and Security stated that, in order to improve service delivery to all communities, the decision had been made to place child protection unit officers in police service stations, under the supervision of the station commissioners of the stations. This is in line with the Department’s policy of “Migrating” the staff of all specialised units to station level including the FCS, murder and robbery and other units.

It was clear that little or no consultation had taken place within the network of service providers in the child protection field and indeed with lower level representatives of the South African Police Services itself.

Participants in this meeting requested consultation with all role-players and also pointed out that this would have a marked impact on and require changes to the National Child Protection Strategy (just finalised with SAPS participation) and also the Provincial Child Protection Protocols, the contracts of agreement between the role-players in the child protection system that enable the caring and effective inter-sector provision of services to abused children.

There was no response to this request. In Gauteng in September 2006, at less than a week’s notice to their own staff, FCS unit staff members were given instructions to report to various cluster police stations in order to effect the new policy of “migration”.

How successful has these “migration” been?

According to research conducted by the DA MP whose portfolio is safety and security “there are 36 cluster stations across Gauteng to which family violence, child abuse and sexual assault cases must now be referred. In only three of these stations can it be said that FCS officers are able to offer the same level of service they had been able to offer previously. The failure of the “migration” is indicated very strongly by the fact that these three stations are the only ones where officers had not been moved from their original locations. “

“Not only are resources generally inadequate, but there is very little correlation between rates of social crime in particular areas and the allocation of FCS resources. So, for example, although Hillbrow is the best-equipped station, it is not the station with the highest social crime rate (relating to child abuse and family violence), while other areas with high crime rates are very poorly equipped.” (Waters 2006)

Both NGO’s and state partners in the field of child protection report that the situation is chaotic, with regard to

- The management of new reports of child abuse
- the management of old dockets. Children, families, child protection workers cannot locate investigating officers, dockets, and obtain information about the progress of the case.
- Some of the stations that have the highest numbers of reported abuse have no FCS officers allocated to them, for example Booysens Police Service Station
. - The lack of resources to enable appropriate management of cases: in some police stations, officers are sharing spaces, resulting in a lack of privacy when interviewing victims. In one instances 5 officers were sharing one office with 2 desks and 3 chairs. In some stations there is a shortage of crime kits, as well as a lack of storage space for dockets.
- Untrained officers are allocated child abuse cases that require specialised skills for appropriate management.

. Even more concerning is the lack of joint planning with partners in the child protection field. Civil Society Organisations, the Department of Social Development and other partners were caught by surprise with this move and are also struggling to locate the investigating officers of children with whom they are working.

We do applaud those NGO’s and state department staff who have immediately responded in a positive way to limit the negative impact of this “migration” through providing a hurriedly put together basic training to untrained police personnel managing child abuse matters.

Concluding statement:

1. We appeal to the Department of Safety and Security to delay rolling out this “model” of response to victims of child abuse and sexual assault until its effectiveness and efficiency has been thoroughly evaluated.

2. If roll-out is to occur, we appeal to the Department to ensure that there is adequate preparatory planning with the network of service providers before the migration actually takes place in order to prevent the chaos that resulted from the process in Gauteng. Child protection is not the responsibility of a single sector but rather the shared responsibility of a number of sectors and civil society collectively. When one partner acts alone and without consultation with partners in child protection, the chain of service delivery and protection is disrupted and children who have already been abused are placed further at risk.

CHILD PROTECTION IS EVERYONE’S BUSINESS!