Legal Aid SA's Patrick Hundermark, says 12% of their workload involve these civil cases. A total of R45.3m was paid out to children in the last financial year. Hundermark says sometimes children are old enough to give instructions to their legal representatives, but in many of the cases it is not always possible.

Where the child is not old enough you have to take different considerations into account. There you become the best interest lawyer as to how do you represent the best interest of this child who currently does not have a voice of their own to ensure that whatever happens in that court case is in their best interest.

Hundermark says the cases are also not always cut and dry – sometimes it requires Legal Aid SA to take on even government departments on behalf of a underage client as seen recently.

We have had a 5-year old girl where the department of health refused to give her the medication required to save her live. We got involved, wrote to the department and put them to terms with regard to the medication that was then made available to this child.

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