NO LESS than 45% of children under five who die are malnourished across the world, and South Africa is not exempt.
Children across the country, but more especially on the peripheries, are wasting away as they are faced with a lack of nutritious food, unbalanced meals, poverty, and as different sectors scramble to assist a government which is unable to rescue the situation.
International humanitarian aid organisation, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), says they are subjected to severe wasting, which is the most lethal form of undernutrition, and is one of the top threats to child survival.
“Around one in five deaths among children are attributed to severe wasting, which is caused by a lack of nutritious food and repeated bouts of diseases … and all this in turn compromises a child’s immunity,” they said in a 2022 report.
Malnutrition has also been described as a clog in the wheel of raising a healthy population of children, who grow into teenagers and adults with a low weight-for-height – or stuntedness. “These children struggle to perform at school and in their communities, and, if the survive, they do not contribute to the economy, instead draining resources,” activist Dr Vuyiswa Ndlelanhle said.
Speaking after the South African Human Rights Commission (SAHRC) released a report detailing the horrific conditions some children lived in, the head of Johannesburg NGO, Ngwana Pela, said they drained the education and public health sector, and social development as they constantly required care and assistance.
“There is not enough being done by the government to uplift the lot of children living in poverty. Yes, there is an estimated 15 million or so on child support grants, and some are fed by school nutrition schemes, but it is not sufficient for the level of hunger,” he said.
A report on child poverty, recently released by the Department of Social Development, found that over seven million remained below the food poverty line of R663 per person per month in 2022.
A year-long investigation by the SAHRC, released in October, uncovered that high rates of poverty, hunger, and malnutrition stunted children, and too many went to bed on an empty stomach. And when they did eat their food lacked adequate nutrition.
Said the SAHRC: “We have discovered that this problem is nationwide, so an increase in school nutrition and child grants is necessary. The national finance and government needs to prioritise the right to life, to sufficient food, prioritise how they disburse money to ensure children do not die of hunger, nor that they eat food just to eat, but food that builds body and mind.”
The University of Cape Town, in a report on the state of child nutrition and poverty, detailed increased levels of poverty post-Covid-19, as parents were subjected to the lockdown, and lost jobs.
“Child poverty remains racially and geographically distorted. African children and those living in former homelands are most likely to be poor. While the national child food poverty rate was 33% in 2019, it was 37% for African children and 51% for African children living in rural areas and former homelands,” read the report, titled ‘A Review of Child Poverty and Value of the Child Support Grant’.
It went on to say just over half of the nearly eight million children in former rural homelands lived in conditions of poverty, and about six million were below the upper bound poverty line.
The SAHRC and others have called for the re-prioritising of available money from the fiscus, to ensure children had access to healthy food – at school and out.
“The school nutrition programme is not sufficient … while some children might eat when at school, that is the only meal they have,” Ndlelanhle said.
That in addition to the fact that the programme runs from Monday to Friday, and is not available on holidays and weekends.
“Too many children fall through the cracks. Government departments need to come up with a strong strategy to make sure children are not only fed, but that they eat nutritiously, frequently and all the time.”
The child support grant, while reaching large numbers of poor children, does not take into consideration the homes they live in, he said. “The R500 grant will go towards the needs of the home, not just food, so it is a vicious cycle that must be broken if the country’s economy is to grow.“