Chairperson, the social development and assistance to the wellbeing of the children in this country is not enough. For instance, it has been reported that there is rapid escalation of a number of children headed household in the country. These children are then more vulnerable to be drawn into criminal activities, drug abuse and dropping out of school at an early age. Criminal capacity meets an appreciation of a wrongfulness of an act and reconciling oneself to that wrongfulness.
In the presence of all social illness facing the development of children in this country, can we, for certain, reconcile ourselves with a 12 year old having a criminal capacity? Why should be seek to
criminalise children for failure of the state to provide good enough foundation for the proper development of our children?
Children do not choose to be born in informal settlements where at times the only way out of poverty is through criminal activity. It is rather the government that sustains those conditions through promoting unequal distribution of wealth. We support the spirit of the Bill in raising the age of criminal capacity but we would have liked the Bill to have gone further than it has now. We therefore reject the Bill in its current format. Thank you Chairperson.