Access to justice for children with disabilities : the South African context
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Research indicates that violence against children with disabilities 1 occurs at annual rates at least 1.7 times greater than for their non-disabled peers.Children with disabilities are also abandoned more frequently than their non-disabled peers and may face increased levels of discrimination, as a result of their disability.An increased likelihood of abandonment, abuse and discrimination highlights the need for the South African justice system to be ready and able to receive children with disabilities and provide them with access to appropriate redress.Relying on the interrelated nature of the rights contained in the South African Constitution, this research is first and foremost focusing on the rights of the child.Another level of vulnerability is added in respect of the right of children to have access to justice: disability.This is referred to within the scope of this research as the "two-tier vulnerability" principle.This principle necessitates that an approach to address the needs of children with disabilities must be sought with one leg in the discourse of the rights of children and another within the area of the rights of people with disabilities.A combination of the two approaches is applied in assessing South Africa's responses to the rights of children with disabilities to have access to justice.The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, as well as the United Nations Convention on the Rights of People with Disabilities further assist in establishing a framework against which access to justice for children with disabilities in domestic legislation and other measures are tested.This research concludes by comparing South Africa's responsiveness to two other jurisdictions, namely Ghana and Canada, as well as best practices from certain states from the United States of America, and makes recommendations on how to apply the best practices principle.1 Hereafter referred to as CWD.iii KEYWORDS Children with disabilities, access to justice, people with disabilities, abuse of children with disabilities, discrimination on the basis of disability, Article 13 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of People with Disabilities, the Children's Act 38 of 2005, Children's Courts, Equality Courts, accessible court buildings, training of presiding officers.started my legal career.The plight of the most vulnerable in our society, such as children with disabilities, moved me to conduct this research.It has been a journey which has made me humble, and so much more aware of the work that still needs to be done, in order to address the rights of those most in need.Working with, and under the supervision of Professor Trynie Boezaart has been inspiring.The manner in which she was able to guide, strengthen, and support this research kept me focussed and driven even where we faced challenges along the way.Her general way of assisting me to believe in my thoughts, views and arguments, whilst simultaneously guiding me towards greater insight is commendable, and I can honestly not express the level of respect I have for her knowledge and student management skills in this limited space.It has provided me with renewed excitement for the field of children's rights, which I wish to contribute towards for the foreseeable future.I also wish to express gratitude for Dr Grobbelaar-Du Plessis who joined this study at a later stage, and provided invaluable expertise within the disability area of this research.Her insight, contribution and assistance provided me with guidance throughout, and immensely improved this contribution.To my brothers and in-laws, and parents Louis and Eileen in particular: you have supported and encouraged this research throughout, and understood what it took to strive towards a passion whilst trying to maintain some level of normalcy in everyday life.Your support carried me during this journey.My parents have been beacons of inspiration, and I am proud to follow in my mother's footsteps in obtaining this degree.Lastly, to my remarkable husband, Paul.You have been my rock, motivation and the captain of this journey, and without you this contribution would not have been possible.Only you know what it took to complete this research, and I dedicate this v contribution, and any possible positive outcome it may have on the lives of children with disabilities, to you.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.002 | 0.004 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.002 | 0.004 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.012 | 0.010 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.005 | 0.004 |
| Open science | 0.001 | 0.008 |
| Research integrity | 0.002 | 0.004 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.006 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".