By C. Anzio Jacobs.
South Africa does not lack frameworks for protecting children. What it lacks is the political will to convert them into enforceable systems. Child Protection Month’s 2026 theme, “Working together in ending violence against children,” is appropriate. But without a concrete accountability agenda, it will remain a campaign, not a commitment.
Cabinet’s approval of the National Strategy to Accelerate Action for Children (NSAAC) in December 2025 marked an important step towards creating a more coordinated national response to children’s wellbeing in South Africa. The strategy outlines ten critical priority areas, including caregiver support, child survival, nutrition, early learning, disability inclusion, protection from violence, digital safety, adolescent health, quality education, and children’s participation and agency. Its greatest strength lies in recognizing that children’s well-being cannot be addressed in isolation, but requires integrated action across multiple systems and sectors.
However, South Africa’s challenge has never been a lack of policy frameworks, but rather the consistent implementation, funding, and accountability needed to translate policy into meaningful change for children.
Child Protection Week must therefore serve as more than a symbolic commemoration. It should become a platform for sustained advocacy, accountability, and action. The NSAAC provides a clear roadmap; what remains uncertain is whether there will be the political will, resources, and collective commitment required to fully implement it.
At the centre of child protection are caregivers and communities. Children are most often protected or failed within homes and local environments. Expecting caregivers to safeguard children while they themselves face severe economic hardship, emotional strain, and limited access to support places an unfair burden on families. Social protection measures such as income support, accessible mental health services, and effective referral systems are not secondary interventions; they are essential components of protecting children.
Child protection cannot be separated from the broader social realities shaping children’s lives. Hunger and poverty continue to push children out of school and into situations of exploitation, child labour, and early pregnancy, making social grants, school feeding schemes, and household income support essential forms of child protection.
At the same time, violence against children remains deeply connected to gender inequality, substance abuse, unsafe schools, and limited psychosocial care. Child Protection Week must therefore move beyond awareness campaigns and confront difficult questions about whether children can safely report abuse, whether schools have effective safeguarding systems, and whether survivors receive sustained support. The growing threat of digital harm further complicates this reality, with children increasingly exposed to abuse and exploitation online.
Yet there are important signs of progress, including the child-led online safety and AI governance framework developed by young people at Stellenbosch University in 2025, which is now informing national policy discussions. Protecting children also requires acknowledging the distinct vulnerabilities facing adolescents, from sexual violence and exclusion affecting girls to the urgent need for emotional well-being and violence prevention support for boys. Ultimately, children must not be treated as passive recipients of protection, but as rights-holders whose voices and experiences should shape the policies and systems designed to safeguard them.
The NSAAC gives South Africa a shared language for children’s well-being. Language is not delivery. If this strategy is not costed, institutionalized, and publicly monitored, it will become another policy document that describes children’s rights while children continue to absorb the consequences of adult failure.
The measure of this Child Protection Week will not be the number of statements issued. It will be whether we use the moment to insist that the NSAAC becomes operational, funded, and accountable.
Children do not need another symbolic promise. They need systems that can finally hold the line between policy and protection.
C. Anzio Jacobs – Child Safety & Protection Manager Nelson Mandela Children’s Fund.