Project profile — Child Protection Surveillance

The study on the surveillance of the abuse, neglect and exploitation of children aims to increase the capacity of the South African Department of Social Development as well as the provincial and civil society partners in the provision of child protection services across South Africa. The study aims to provide the framework and foundation for the development of a national surveillance system on child abuse, neglect and exploitation.

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Results achieved as of April 2016 include: (1) developed a gender-sensitive child protection study with the South African Department of Social Development, with support from the Child Welfare League of Canada and Statistics Canada. This helped assess institutional gaps in how cases of child abuse, neglect and exploitation are identified and processed and it will feed into the Department’s ongoing child protection review and lead to more effective and evidence-based responses to child abuse; (2) the study findings helped identify the importance of engaging schools, hospitals and police in identifying and referring cases, and the need to improve the registration system to ensure proper reporting; (3) 1367 child protection workers were trained on identifying different types of abuse and on using more effective data collection instruments; and (4)731 government officials were trained in evidence-based planning and programming.