Law Enforcement Remains A Challenge – Government Officials Agree

Lesotho's Minister of Justice and Human Rights and Correctional Services -
Dr. Mahali Phamotse

SADC government officials who attended the SADC launch of “It takes the world to end violence against children campaign, agree that the problem is not the absence of laws and policies protecting children, but the implementation. In their contributions during a roundtable discussion, they all agreed that as much as there is some progress in some countries, more still needs to be done to ensure children are protected.

The minister of Justice from Lesotho Dr. Mahali Phamotse indicated that the laws are there in many countries. The problem is implementation especially penalties on perpetrators of the crime.

“I must confess that we have very good laws but enforcement of penalties remain a problem," she said, adding that there are also laws that are still not harmonised. 
“We for example have laws that still refer to the age of 16 as legal for the marriage of girls whilst others refer to the age of 18 and the two need to be corrected, she said. She agrees that as politicians, they need to be held accountable by the electorate.

“There are lots of things we say and do which do not necessarily include what we think about children. Even our people, we do not educate them enough about their rights and that needs to stop," she concluded.

In Zambia chiefs are given the responsibility of protecting vulnerable children and are supposed to report on the progress made said Felix Phiri, the permanent secretary for Gender and Child Development.

“One of our chiefs has even opened a bank account where money collected as penalties from parents who were marrying off children was deposited.  The money is directed towards programs such as girl’s education, women empowerment and livelihood as well as agriculture and value chain husbandry," he revealed.

Swaziland on the other hand is heading towards establishing children's courts in every magistrate court to ensure that cases affecting children are dealt with accordingly.

“This, we do, because we see violence against children as an attack on human existence. We also see it as an attack on efforts made in attaining sustainable futures,” said the permanent secretary in Children’s department Mr.  Mhambi  Glangamandla. 

He also said that a department dealing with matters pertaining to children has also been established as a way of giving children’s issues the justice they deserve.   

“We have further established initiatives such as “shoulder to cry on, child-to-child radio programmes as a way of trying to make the environment conducive to deal with children’s issues,” he added.

There are reports of progress, but this global campaign is a clear indication that the war on violence against children is far from over. He called for in-depth political will to ensure that laws are not only passed but progress is monitored and people are held accountable.

This regional campaign is expected to impact the lives of hundreds of thousands of children by making a significant contribution towards their well-being in line with the Sustainable Development Goals and the AU’s Agenda 2063.