SA designer appointed as
UNICEF Ambassador
 South
African couturier and
humanitarian activist Gavin
Rajah has been appointed as
a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador.
The announcement by the
global children’s
organisation came at the
close of the designer’s Cape
Town Fashion Week.
Welcoming
Rajah to the fraternity of
UNICEF Goodwill Ambassadors,
Macharia Kamau, UNICEF South
Africa Country
Representative, said the
appointment recognized
Rajah’s transformative
contributions to the lives
of South African children
and their families.
"Through
his generous philanthropy
and advocacy and his
impressive creative
achievements as a fashion
designer and entrepreneur,
Gavin Rajah promotes the
rights of women and children
to protection from violence,
abuse and exploitation, and
actively supports the
development of critical life
skills for young people,"
said Kamau.
Rajah
said, as he accepted the
UNICEF appointment, “I am
deeply honoured by this
appointment, I have always
been a great admirer of
UNICEF’s work to protect the
children of the world and I
am proud to have been given
the opportunity to help
UNICEF protect, care for and
stamp out the most abhorrent
crime of violence against
children, particularly those
in my own country. We must
all work harder to create
safer conditions for
children to grow up in.
There is no future without
children.”
In his
work with UNICEF, Rajah will
champion child protection,
focusing on the care and
protection of orphans and
other vulnerable children
like those in child-headed
households, and for their
right to grow up in healthy,
safe environments, free from
the scourge of violence.
According
WHO global estimates, twenty-five
per cent of girls and eight
percent of boys have been
subjected to some form of
sexual abuse. The United
Nations Study on violence
against children showed that
from forty to sixty percent
of sexual abuse in families
involves girls under the age
of 15, and that boys and
girls with physical
disabilities are
particularly vulnerable to
sexual abuse.
Equally
startling data on violence
against children in South
Africa show that the country
may have a long way to go to
achieve Rajah’s dream of a
violence free environment
for all children. According
to the South African Police
Service (SAPS), 360 000
women and children were
murdered, raped, assaulted
and sexually molested in
South Africa in 2005 and
31,607 children were victims
of common assault. Eighty-eight
percent of first offenders
are known to the abused.
South
Africa is fighting back,
however, with significant
pieces of protection
legislation currently before
Parliament such as the
Children’s Amendment Bill,
the Sexual Offences Bill the
Child Justice Bill and Child
Trafficking legislation.
Child protection units and
specialised courts have been
established to deal with
sexual offences and aim to
help reduce the time between
reporting and finalizing a
case and increase conviction
rates.
South
Africa has a seven per cent
conviction rate for all
rapes reported to police,
whether child or an adult.
UNICEF provides technical
support to these initiatives
and to the 12 integrated
centres (Thuthuzelas) that
provide treatment, care and
support to child survivors
of sexual violence.
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USAID
Country
Coordinator
for
Azerbaijan
Scott
Taylor
interviewed
by APA-Economics
