2nd National Conference on Orphans and Other ... - FHI 360

documents such as the UN Convention on the
Rights of Child (CRC), and in our own current
and draft legislation, and we would like the
definition we adopt to conform with all these.
As Mr Sebastian noted, children still attending
school are considered to be dependent schoolgoing
children and are thus not excluded from
care and support services. This has always been
the practice. Likewise in the case of child welfare
grants, the Commissioner of Child Welfare will
always extend a grant or allowance for as long
as a child remains in the school system.
Question: I am concerned that the terms used
are not broad enough. Should we not consider
finding one all-inclusive term – that encapsulates
all these and other categories of children?
Comment (Heidi Beinhauer, CLASH): I
appeal to you to mention children with disabilities
in some way in the definition, especially if you
come to specifying what you mean by the term
“disadvantaged”. Children with disabilities aren’t
going to disappear. (This appeal was supported.)
Response: There are many other categories,
e.g. children forced into labour or prostitution
and children on the street. We thought that if we
refer to all those in need of care, we would be
embracing all these categories. The Children’s
Act definition of ‘children in need of care’ very
much embraces all the casualties and pathologies
we deal with. We cannot mention each one as
the list would be endless. We believe that children
with disabilities have special needs, that
they are in need of care and that often they are
also disadvantaged by their disability. The same
applies to other categories of children. Also, there
will be more and more problems emerging in
society necessitating adding more and more to
the definition, and somewhere along the line we
are bound to leave out a specific category. We
therefore propose that the term “in need of care”
is inclusive of children with disabilities.
Question: If my husband dies and I am left to
care for our children, and I am employed and
earning a good salary and I can afford to care
for them, are they regarded as orphans? We will
have problems in registering orphans if we have
a lot of working mothers who earn well applying
for grants for their own children and for orphans
they take in. How do we deal with this scenario?
Response: This is a very good question, which
is likely to come up in the working group sessions.
Question: Should we not also mention children
infected by HIV/AIDS?
Response: We can discuss this further.
Question: Regarding the term “mother, father
or both parents”, can a child really be an orphan
if one parent is still alive, and do we mean only
biological parents? We have children who have
never been cared for by their biological parents.
Are we referring to any other caregiver who has
raised these children as well as biological parents?
Response: We need guidance from the house
on how to deal with these issues. The GRN/
UNICEF Country Programme stakeholders have
always felt that it should be one or both parents,
but this is not cast in stone. Many children grow
up not really knowing their biological parents,
so the deaths of the latter would not have a major
impact on their lives, whereas the death of a caregiving
aunt or grandfather would orphan a child
in the true sense of the word. These are difficult
technical issues, and we have to take our laws
and international instruments into account since
we cannot have a definition that conflicts with
those, nor one that could fill a book.
Comment (Ms Liana Mbako, 17-year-old
OVC from Tsumeb): I would just like to say
that while we are all committed to giving orphans
everything they need, we must not forget that
orphans also have rights.
Ms Masabane pointed out that two experts on OVC were present, namely Mr Stanley Phiri and Ms
Pelucy Nfambirweki, both from the UNICEF Regional Office in Nairobi, whose expertise in this regard
would be very useful.
The chairperson proposed that the definition could not be adopted without further discussion, but
since a definition had to be adopted at the conference, a committee of volunteers should work on the
proposal taking into account the plenary input and report back on Day 3. The volunteers were Lucy
Steinitz of CAA, Doris Roos of UNICEF Namibia, Spendu Onesmus of the MWACW and Pelucy
Nfambirweki from the UNICEF Regional Office (see report-back on p.54).
8 <strong>2nd</strong> <strong>National</strong> <strong>Conference</strong> on Orphans and Other Vulnerable Children – Windhoek, Namibia, 25-27 June 2002: Full Report