Recipe for happy SA

The government is encouraging South Africans to get married - and has even urged black families to adopt, rather than foster, children in a bid to boost traditional family values.

In an unprecedented move to rebuild a happier and healthier nation, the cabinet this week released a document containing a set of proposals.

The green paper, titled National Family Policy, is the brainchild of the Department of Social Development and examines family structures.

Compiled in consultation with other government departments, the policy seeks to create a nation of happy families in the hope that this will boost nation-building and create a socially cohesive environment.

Key recommendations include:

• Encouraging strong marriages and a culture of two-parent households;
• Getting more black families to adopt, rather than foster, children, as most foster children end up without a family once they reach 18;
• Introducing parenting classes for first-time parents; and
• Teaching children the importance of family values in school.

The 73-page document traces the historical decline of traditional family values and concludes that the family's stability is under threat from poverty, unemployment, unwanted pregnancies, HIV and Aids, absent parents and domestic violence.

It says historical and political factors , including migrant labour, have affect ed the quality of family life .

Project manager Percy Ntsoane said the policy was still awaiting input from various cabinet ministers before it would be open for public comment.

''It's the first of its kind in SA. We have other pieces of legislation, but they do not focus on the family as a unit."

Ntsoane said black families tended to foster vulnerable children, instead of adopting them and making them part of a family unit.

''In most cases, we find people are motivated to foster, not because of their love for children, but because there's money [involved], and we are trying to move away from that situation.

''As soon as a child reaches 18, they are taken out of the system and that is not sustainable. We are looking for a permanent solution," said Ntsoane.

The director of the Family Policy Institute, Errol Naidoo, said the SA family was in crisis and the breakdown of family was at the root of most social problems. Absent fathers were among the main contributing factors.

''The government cannot do the job of the family. It can only create the environment in which the family can thrive."

Also a marriage counsellor, Naidoo said the government needed to partner with churches to facilitate marriage and parenting classes.

''Men and women put more thought and preparation into their wedding than their marriage. A reasonable period of pre-marriage counselling does wonders," he said.

The document breaks down families into 13 types, including the traditional nuclear family (mother, father, child), single parent, child-headed households and same-sex marriages.

Family policies have been successfully implemented in Australia and various Scandinavian countries.

Research by the SA Institute of Race Relations in 2008, cited in the policy, stated that almost a quarter of children under 18 grew up without their biological parents.

In the Eastern Cape, children who grew up without parents outnumbered those with both parents, while the number of orphans doubled in the past five years from 352000 to 701000. And, based on the 2008 statistics, 1.4 million children lost their parents to Aids.

The green paper also makes reference to a 2005 general household survey which found that the Western Cape had the largest percentage of nuclear families at 34.88%, followed by Gauteng at 28.32%.

Eastern Cape had the highest percentage of single, unmarried parents at 13.62%. Limpopo had the highest number of child-headed families at 2.05%, while single, female-headed households were the highest in the Western Cape at 35.1%, followed by Gauteng at 31.68%. The Eastern Cape also had the highest number - 47.13% - of men who raised children.

Lisa Vetten of the Tshwaranang Legal Advocacy Centre said the document was a much-needed policy.

She said there had been decades of disintegration of families. ''I hope it addresses domestic violence and child abuse. Women who are victims of domestic violence often say they don't have the support of their family."