Special Hearings — Children's Hearings — 1997-06-12

DR FAZEL: Maybe I should make that announcement now for people who want to listen to interpretation, there are these boxes available and the headphones.
 Can somebody indicate where they are?  Are they in the front or in the back?  In the corner over there, Mrs Seqwati Pitso is handing them out, so if you want to please take one of those boxes.  English will  be on 2, Afrikaans, 1, Sotho is on 4.  Thank you very much.
 Ladies and gentlemen, can I welcome you warmly to this hearing on children and youth.  Before I proceed, I want to welcome the Wits choral grouping, we would like to thank them from the TRC's side for coming here this morning to open the proceedings with a song and perhaps they could start off.

WITS CHORAL GROUPING START PROCEEDINGS: .

DR FAZEL: Thank you very much to the Wits choral.  If we can just ask Prof Piet Meiring to start us off with a prayer.

PROF PIET MEIRING OPENS THE PROCEEDINGS WITH PRAYER: .

DR FAZEL: Thank you Prof Meiring.  Can I introduce the panel before I start  the rest of the proceedings.  On my extreme left is Prof Piet Meiring, who is a member of the Reparations and Rehabilitations Committee.
 Next to him is Ms Joyce Seroke, who is a member of the Human Rights Violations Committee.  Next to Joyce is Mr Wynand Malan, who is also a member of the Human Rights Violations Committee.  On my immediate left is Ms Hlengiwe Mhkize, a member of the Human Rights Violations Committee.  On my right hand side is Mr Tom Manthata, a member of the Reparations and Rehabilitation Committee, and I am Fazel Randera, also on the Human Rights Violations Committee.
 This is a special hearing dedicated to children and youth.  It is appropriate that we are holding it in the month of June because four days from now, we will be celebrating June, 16 - an uprising in Soweto which many people would argue contributed largely to where we are today.
 The Commission has been accused of always looking at the past and I think this hearing in a sense, tries to go beyond the past because what we also argue in the Commission and that is part of our mandate, is that the Commission is a mirror and a window on the future and today, you will be hearing submissions from different groupings, human rights, NGO's, experts in the field and of course most importantly  the victims, witnesses themselves, who have come forward to talk about what happened to them.
 As we listen to their stories, I would like us to reflect because sometimes when we look at the conflicts, we think about a shooting, a killing, a torture, but there were other very important aspects of this conflict that took place.
 In a sense what we saw was destabilisation of communities internally to South Africa and externally to South Africa.  In many respects we live with the legacies of that destabilisation that took place.
 If we just think about what happened inside the country where thousands of families were uprooted, where children had to leave their homes, young people had to leave their homes and the effects of all that, we can come to realise the enormity of the problem that we are facing.  
 If we look at what happened outside our borders, I remember - I know Mrs Machel is in the audience, in 1991 when we went on a delegation to meet up with - excuse me, I should have announced that everybody should put their cellphones off, including Dr Randera - when we went to Maputu to meet up with the ANC Health Committee, Mrs Machel was the keynote speaker at that time, and she described clearly, vividly what had gone previously as far as the government setting up primary health care clinics throughout the country, and with the destabilisation and the war that ensued in that country, all those facilities, most of those facilities were destroyed.
 And again the impact of that on those communities, was enormous and we need to think about, as we listen to the stories today, we need to realise how important that was as well.  Also just remember that the resources that went into arming the State machinery in this country, outside the country, could have been used for other purposes and that didn't happen and as a result again, communities suffered because of that.
 I want to extend a very warm welcome to Mrs Machel and as she comes up to the platform to talk to us about the work that she and her Committee has been doing, I would just like to say a few words.  In 1993, the Secretary General requested the appointment of an expert to study the impact of armed conflict on children.  This was a global study that was done, Mrs Machel was chosen as that expert.  Recently that report has been published, I am sure some of you have had seem that report and Mrs Machel is going to speak to that report and her own experiences.  Thank you Mrs Machel.  Chairperson, I hand over to you.

UNKNOWN: It is not very nice to be discriminated against, to be sitting here alone.

DR FAZEL: You are very welcome.

MS MKHIZE: Thank you.  Before we give a special welcome to Mrs Machel, I would like to welcome  young people, kids from (indistinct) and King Edward.  We are pleased to have you here, this is a special day for young people of this country to get an opportunity of thinking about what other young people have gone through in the process of transforming the country.  So you are welcome.
 I don't know whether I should welcome you Peter as well.  I didn't understand what was going on.  Really in welcoming Mrs Machel, maybe just to add what our Regional Convenor, Dr Randera has said, for us as a Commission when we decided to have the children's hearings, we debated the issue very, very carefully as to whether do we really need this, but at the time when the Commission decided to have the hearings, our objectives were clear.  We wanted to be able to create an opportunity for the people of this country to be able to articulate what went wrong, especially what was child specific.
 So in welcoming you, we are pleased to have you as a person who is in a position to give a global perspective in struggling with these issues.  When people are talking about childrens' exposure to armed conflict or in our terminology, looking at child specific human rights issues, we need to give people an opportunity to be able to take a position as to what is it that they are talking about.
 And to be able to, especially for young people,  the schools are here, to be able to grabble with issues, child specific practices which fall under the category of human rights violations, so we have given you that responsibility to help us to locate this within the international community and hopefully to fit in our local submissions within your framework as well.  So you are welcome.