
Julia L Sloth-NielsenUniversity of the Western Cape | uwc · Faculty of Law
Julia L Sloth-Nielsen
About
98
Publications
32,210
Reads
How we measure 'reads'
A 'read' is counted each time someone views a publication summary (such as the title, abstract, and list of authors), clicks on a figure, or views or downloads the full-text. Learn more
636
Citations
Introduction
Skills and Expertise
Publications
Publications (98)
The ILA Study Group began its work by identifying guiding principles that should frame and inform state practices with respect to children in migration. These principles included, but were not limited to, non-discrimination; the best interests of the child; the right to life, survival, and development; the right of the child to express their views...
The Oxford Handbook of Family Policy Over the Life Course examines how countries devised measures for child protection outlined in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC). The UNCRC highlights the importance of protecting children from a range of human rights violations. In response, countries respond differently to human r...
The Oxford Handbook of Family Policy Over the Life Course examines how countries devised measures for child protection outlined in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC). The UNCRC highlights the importance of protecting children from a range of human rights violations. In response, countries respond differently to human r...
This contribution examines the implications of Bwanya v The Master of the High Court for customary unions in South Africa. Bwanya ruled that the Intestate Succession Act and the Maintenance of Surviving Spouses Act were unconstitutional to the extent that they failed to include heterosexual life partners as beneficiaries falling within their remit,...
1. INTRODUCTION
In 2003, an article on the impact of the 1996 Constitution of South Africa on family law was published in the International Journal of Law, Policy and the Family. In particular, it reviewed the origins of the absence of a clause specifically dedicated to family rights in the constitutional drafting process, the definition of a famil...
An article based on a research study looking at the effect of race and class disparity on restorative justice processes in South Africa.
The International Society of Family Law is an independent, international, and non-political scholarly association dedicated to the study, research and discussion of family law and related disciplines. The Society's membership currently includes professors, lecturers, scholars, teachers and researchers from more than fifty different countries, offer...
The covid -19 pandemic spread has it impacted health systems, economies and communities across the African continent. It has also exacerbated risks already faced by children: limiting access to education, reducing protection from sexual and gender-based violence, harmful traditional and cultural practices including child, early or forced marriage (...
The review concerns the position of the identification as ‘mother’ or ‘father’ of trans persons who give birth. This matter has occupied courts in the United Kingdom, Germany, Brazil and Sweden recently, and could well arise in South Africa, our country of origin. The first part of the discussion relates to a claim of a trans man who gave birth to...
This article reviews the abolition of the defence of reasonable chastisement by the South African Constitutional Court on the grounds that it infringes the Constitution. After detailing the history of the abolition of corporal punishment in a democracy with the Constitution as supreme law, the article dissects the reasoning of the Constitutional Co...
Safeguarding in the context of development and humanitarian assistance has received heightened international attention since 2018. Emerging literature has not yet investigated the extent to which responses are evolving in the best interests of the child, in line with the treaty-based rights of children. This article makes a unique contribution to s...
Safeguarding Children's Rights in Immigration Law - edited by Mark Klaassen January 2020
in M.A.K. Klaassen/T. Liefaard/S.E. Rap/P.R. Rodrigues (a cura di), Safeguarding Children’s Rights in Immigration Law, Intersentia (Cambridge), 2020, 41-65
With 30 years since the adoption of the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child, this article discusses how the Charter has contributed to understanding and addressing children's rights to protection. Looking back, the article examines the impetus for the Charter in the context of an emerging field of child protection on the continen...
International Survey of Family Law 2019 - edited by Margaret Brinig September 2019
GENERAL LEGAL FRAMEWORK
Steps to regulate surrogacy in South Africa predate the advent of democracy. In 1987, in a much publicised case, Karen Ferreira Jorge gave birth to triplets, born of the gametes of her daughter (she was the gestational mother and the biological grandmother). At the time there was no legal regulation for this unprecedented st...
Cambridge Core - Family Law - International Survey of Family Law 2018 - edited by Margaret Brinig
This article provides a 20 year overview of children's rights jurisprudence in South Africa, with a predominant focus on cases in the public law arena (as opposed to family law). After identifying various themes that the author believes are worthy of note, such as the interplay between best interests and the child's rights to dignity; the innovativ...
International Survey of Family Law 2018 - edited by Margaret Brinig September 2018
This chapter reviews the monitoring, and requirements for domestic implementation, of the rights contained in the Convention on the Rights of the Child (hereafter CRC). It explains the State party reporting system established under Article 44 of the CRC and the consideration of these reports by the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Chil...
In the midst of concerns about serious offences committed by young people, the Child Justice Act is the first formal legislative step to introduce restorative justice in South Africa, and promotes reconciliation and problem solving as an approach to the criminal behaviour of youth.This article analyses the new place of restorative justice and ubunt...
The Protection of Economic, Social and Cultural Rights in Africa critiques the three main models of constitutionally protecting economic, social and cultural rights in Africa - direct, indirect and hybrid models. It examines the choices that states have made, how the models have worked, whether they have been tested in litigation and the jurisprude...
This article reports on the findings of a study of foreign children accommodated in the care system in the Western Cape, based on fieldwork conducted in child and youth care centres. The objectives of the study were firstly to map and quantify the number and demographics of foreign children placed in all CYCCs across the Western Cape. Secondly, the...
The legislation passed in 1997 that provides for mandatory minimum sentences for serious crimes was recently extended for another two years. At the time, the aim was to reduce serious and violent crime, achieve consistency in sentencing, and satisfy the public that sentences were sufficiently severe. This article argues that the legislation has ach...
This chapter describes and assesses the experiences to date of litigating children’s rights under the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child (1990). The communications procedure under the African Children’s Charter is explained with reference to the Charter itself as well as the rules of procedure developed in 2006 by the African Co...
Mayelane v Ngwenyama 2013 4 SA 415 (CC) is arguably the most important judgment concerning the recognition of customary marriages in recent times. This article attempts to unpack some of the many issues that arise from the case, namely: (a) the practical difficulties associated with ascertaining living customary law and the problems of identifying...
This article discusses the safeguarding movement in the context of child
protection. After providing it’s key principles and precepts, the relevant provisions of the
African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child which link to safeguarding are
stipulated, as well as a brief description given of the mandate of the African Committee of
Expert...
In Child-friendly Justice, world-leading experts on children’s rights analyse how the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child has strengthened children’s status in civil, administrative and criminal justice systems.
By charting the contribution of social development service delivery to enhance child justice in South Africa from 1996 to 2006, this article argues that the contribution of the social development sector to child justice has been substantial. It describes a range of developments in relation to assessment, diversion, pre-trial incarceration, the resi...
The South African Children's Act 38 of 2005 is arguably the first legislative instrument internationally to provide for cluster foster care. The legal and social underpinnings of cluster foster care, juxtaposed to conventional foster care, are examined and situated within contemporary social norms. The recent UN Guidelines for the Alternative Care...
This article reviews the principal developments which have shaped and continue to shape South African family law over the
last decade. We propose that under the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa, a unique conception of ‘family’ has developed.
The review includes an analysis of the law relating to same-sex unions, of heterosexual partners...
INTRODUCTION: This chapter reviews specific aspects of the Children’s Protection and Welfare Act 2011 of Lesotho, insofar as they pertain to the situation of orphans and vulnerable children. The chapter commences with a brief outline of the context in which the legislation was adopted, including a brief overview of relevant country data. The substa...
The inclusion of kafalah of Islamic law in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child is the first time an exclusively Islamic concept is recognised in a binding international instrument. The drafting of CRC was set against the background of compromise as it relates to the provision of alternative care for children deprived of a famil...
This article represents the next in a series of five-year overviews of children’s rights in the courts in South Africa. Using the Convention on the Rights of the Child and the African Charter on the Welfare of Children as a point of departure, the study suggests that it is in the public sphere that children’s rights have had their most impact in th...
Commencing with a brief historical overview of detention of children in South Africa, and legislative attempts to curb its use, this article reviews all forms of deprivation of liberty under the Child Justice Act 75 of 2008 and attempts to assess at a practical level whether - or not - progress is being made in the quest for the minimal use of depr...
The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) represents the most significant step towards the advancement of children’s rights globally. Article 4 of the UNCRC requires states to take concrete measures to ensure the harmonisation of laws relating to children with the Convention’s substantive provisions, including legislative and...
This article reviews the Act’s provisions concerning surrogacy and raises some questions for consideration.
This collection is anchored in an African conception of children's rights and the law, and reflects contemporary discourses taking place in the region of the children's rights sphere. The majority of contributors are African and adopt an individual approach to their topic which reflects their first–hand experience. The book focuses on child rights...
This chapter poses a question often aimed at lawyers, especially when they straddle a culturally diverse and contested terrain of human experience, such as the role of children and families in society: does law matter? The question is all the more pertinent in African contexts, due to the pervasive poverty, prevalence of practices harmful to childr...
This article analyses the legal framework surrounding male circumcision (infant and youth) in South Africa, having explained the requirements of international human rights law. Provincial legislation regulating traditional circumcision is detailed, followed by an explanation and analysis of the relevant provisions of the Children's Act 38 of 2005 a...
The promulgation of the Jurisdiction of the Regional Courts Amendment Act, 31 of 2008 (hereafter the JRCAA) in 62 large urban magisterial districts on 9 August 2010 (Women's Day) heralds a potentially drastic transformation of the practice of civil procedure in South Africa. This article focuses on its implications for family law and, especially, c...
The right to non-discrimination for all children is established in international human rights law. International children's rights law further provides for the common responsibility of parents for the maintenance of their children. African customary law and common law have always made a distinction between children born in and out of wedlock so far...
In the midst of concerns about serious offenses committed by young people, the Child Justice Act is the first formal legislative step to introduce restorative justice in South Africa, and promotes reconciliation and problem solving as an approach to the criminal behavior of youth. This article analyses the new place of restorative justice and ubunt...
INTRODUCTION: The duty to report the knowledge of the commission of sexual offences against certain vulnerable victims is newly provided for in this section of the Criminal Law (sexual Offences and Related Matters) Amendment Act. It draws inspiration from two prior reporting obligations related to the reporting child abuse and neglect: the first en...
In this article, the authors evaluate the implications of the Children's Act 38 of 2005 for ukuthwala. Ukuthwala is a practice whereby, as a preliminary procedure to a customary marriage, a young man forcibly takes a girl to his home. In recent times, the practice has taken on other dimensions, including very young girls being married to older men...
This paper reviews recent developments pertinent to
inter-country adoption in Southern and Eastern
Africa. In particular, it focuses on the tripartite roles
of governments, the judiciary and the international
community, including the international media. It
argues that a concerted effort towards
awareness-raising is required in order to harmonise
t...
The 14th and 15th sessions of the African Committee of Experts on the Rights and Welfare of the Child were held in November 2009 and March 2010 respectively. The Committee has considered more reports and issued its first concluding observations. The continued engagement of the Civil Society Organisations Forum with the African Children's Committee...
The political and social transformation of South Africa started in 1990 with a sense of trepidation but with a general conviction that there was no other way but transition to a constitutional democracy, and the nation held its first democratic elections in 1994. Even South Africans in prison have been part of the achievement of a relatively peacef...
The 12th and 13th meetings of the African Children's Committee were held in November 2008 and April 2009 respectively. With the African Children's Charter entering its 10th year since entry into force, the real work of the African Committee is now beginning. With the consideration of the first country reports to the African Committee, the benefits...
This article examines the principle of child participation in a legal context, focusing first on the international and constitutional law framework, and thereafter on the principle as it has permeated the South African Children’s Act. Next, a brief examination of the application of the principle in practice and case law is provided, with the focus...
Each right has a corresponding duty. The African Children's Charter,
under article 31, imposes a range of duties on children. Understandably, it
could become contentious when an instrument on the rights and welfare of
children expressly imposes duties on them. After setting the platform for
discussion by highlighting international experiences and o...
A book review of 'A Commentary on the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, Article 3: The Best Interests of the Child' by Michael Freeman published by Martinus Nijhoff Publishers (The Netherlands), 2007, ISBN: 9789004148611.
During its 11th session, the African Committee of Experts on the Rights and Welfare of the Child held its first Pre-Session for the consideration of state party reports. This update highlights the work of the Committee during this session. While little attention is paid to the proceedings of the 11th session, partly as a result of the fact that the...
South Africa still has some way to go towards ensuring that children's rights to legal representation and to be heard are fully implemented in relation to judicial proceedings affecting them. Nonetheless, some emerging practices point to an ongoing expansion of the realisation of these rights. This article charts some key developments in law, polic...
Law reform in southern and eastern African countries to domesticate the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) and the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child (ACRWC), to synthesize common, civil and customary laws, and to modernise and codify a myriad of outdated statutes affecting children that were inherited from the colon...
The African Committee of Experts on the Rights and Welfare of the Child, the monitoring body of the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child, held its 10th ordinary session in October 2007. This discussion highlights the inertia of the Committee, exemplified by its failure to examine any of the state reports submitted to it. Some caus...
This article describes the Diversion into Music Education (DIME) youth intervention programme that originated in South Africa in 2001. DIME offers instruction in African marimba and djembe ensemble performance to juvenile offenders. Conceived as community collaboration among organizations
in the cities of Cape Town, South Africa and Tampa, United S...
This article represents an initial attempt to identify research themes and topics of special relevance to the furtherance of children's rights in the African context in order to sharpen and strengthen our capacity to promote good practice and promising solutions. It surveys an array of possibilities for research to promote the implementation of chi...
INTRODUCTION: This article reviews the first decade of jurisprudence concerning interpretation of the rights enumerated in s 28(1)(c) of the Constitution of South Africa (the Constitution), commonly referred to as the children’s socio-economic rights clause. Three broad trends are identified, which in the main have resulted in a far more limited sc...
The decision of the Supreme Court of Appeal (SCA) in De Gree v Webb [2007] SCA 87 (RSA) is worthy of consideration for a number of reasons, reasons which do not include the prominent (emotive) media attention devoted to the facts both before the appeal, and the ongoing publicity which occurred in diverse press and radio reports after judgment was h...
Julia Sloth-Nielsen points to challenges in the correctional system that South Africa's new constitutional democracy was faced with, including the deep-rooted militaristic tradition that needed to be replaced and the transformation in staff representativeness. She discusses various aspects of prison building design, including the still controversia...
This article reports on a research project aimed at assessing the impact of race and class disparity in restorative justice processes in South Africa. It was conducted against the backdrop of the inclusion of family group conferencing and restorative justice policy in the Child Justice Bill 49-2002 and in various governmentally supported initiative...
The article reviews the process of liberalization of child and family law that has occurred since the adoption of South Africa's 1996 Constitution. Although the Constitution does not expressly protect the right to family life, the principles of dignity, equality and concern for the vulnerability of marginalized groups in society have heralded a wid...
The article begins with an overview of the socio-economic context surrounding child-headed households and then discusses the constitutional obligations that rest on the state vis-a-vis children growing up in these settings. Considering the scope of the state's obligation where the parents of children below the age of 18 are deceased or unable to re...
This thesis will seek to trace and to analyse the impact of international children's rights law upon the process of juvenile juctice reform in South Africa during the past decade. Repressive juvenile justice laws and practices were highlighted by advocacy groups during th mid late 1980s and early 1990s prior to the adoption of the interim Constitut...