ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on human rights policies, practices, and attitudes in South Africa, and especially on the Children's Act of 2007, which covers a range of children's rights issues, including protection, provision, and participation. It draws from interviews with parents and professionals regarding the implementation of the Children's Act in South Africa. The chapter discusses the human rights evolution from apartheid to post-apartheid as a context. It connects the broader discussion of children's rights, particularly as they are formulated in the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) and the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child to the perspectives of Black parents and professionals whom the authors interviewed in South Africa. The chapter draws from the interviews to analyze ways in which children's rights and the Children's Act are understood and interpreted within communities, within Indigenous communities. It explores anti-colonial literature that is critical of policies and social reforms guided by colonial ideologies.
