Behind the photo ops and ceremonial handovers at the G20 Social Summit was a fierce battle that nearly saw children’s voices silenced once again. Children had to fight to get a seat at the table. They don’t want symbolic participation, they want real power to “shape our world”, but the problem, says Robyn Wolfson Vorster, is that adults don’t want children to speak truth to power.

The 2025 G20 Social Summit ended in an unprecedented manner for South Africa’s children when, on World Children’s Day, 14-year-old Amogelang Mashele read out the summit declaration and 7-year-old Jordan Motshegoa ceremonially handed it to the president.

But the triumph concealed the fierce battle behind the scenes to get children a seat at the table, and how close they came to once again having their voices silenced.

The children’s declaration drafted at the end of the G20 Social Summit’s pre-summit includes content from 70 children from across South Africa, Zimbabwe and Kenya who attended the summit in person along with those who participated virtually or provided content to the delegates through the children’s social media platforms which they cleverly used to crowd source input from diverse groups of children cutting across age, race, class and gender. They, in turn, represent approximately 2.3 billion children, more than a quarter of the world’s population.

It begins: “We, the children of the Children20, are speaking together from different countries, languages and backgrounds. We ask G20 leaders to hear us. The choices you make today will shape our lives tomorrow. We want to help build the world we will grow up in. We are not too young to understand. We are not too young to lead. And we are not too young to be included.”

Delegates debated the five thematic areas designated for the Social Summit – specifically, digital inclusion and safeguarding, trade, climate justice, finance and achieving the sustainable development goals and 2030 agenda. While the resultant conclusions are plainly stated (the declaration was written so that a 10-year-old could understand it), the content is far from basic. To quote one of the teens at the G20 summit: “We chose to avoid the complex and ambiguous language used by adults when they want to avoid accountability.”

It’s a clarion call to action.

The children call for an end to fraud, corruption and waste, for more funding for child-centred projects, for climate justice, trade that protects child rights, safe online spaces and tech that helps children grow rather than putting them in danger, more effective education, support for children with special needs, combatting of hunger, child participation in policy changes around all spheres of life that affect children, strong safeguarding and honest accountability. Individually, they opposed xenophobic education policies, and identified the gender-based violence crisis, statutory rape and mental health as life-defining challenges.

Adding their lived experiences to the discussions, a teenage girl from rural South Africa described “the weight of danger online feeling heavier than my schoolbag”. A boy from Zimbabwe noted that hunger “steals your decisions before it steals your strength”.

They also asked for children to be equal partners in decision-making and a child representative in parliament, quite literally a seat at the table. The challenge to government leaders and even other sectors in civil society is, “nothing about us without us”. This is boldly encapsulated in declaration’s concluding paragraph: “We don’t want symbolic participation, we want real power to shape our world.”

And herein lies the problem, because while many in authority are comfortable with child participation in principle and mindful of the photo ops their presence brings, they are less willing to allow children to direct the process, to disrupt agendas, to fire adult facilitators, to find ways to include even the youngest children, and to speak truth to power.

It was exactly what they did. Children challenged the agenda of the pre-summit, requesting additional time to debate the themes and come up with solution-based statements. At the Social Summit, they questioned the relegation of their side events to the furthermost corner of the property, they insisted on including even the youngest children (who created the thematic posters that famously made it onto the stage during the declaration handover), and asked uncomfortable questions. For example, when told by an African Union representative that they had both rights and responsibilities, one of the
children asked how they could learn responsibilities when adults consistently withhold agency and authority from them.

Authenticity, emotion, and genuineness

Respectful and mindful of protocol throughout, their approach was so clearly lacking in artifice and staidness that Minister in the Presidency Khumbudzo Ntshavheni quipped during the launch of the Unicef State of the World’s Children report after the final event, that during the handover of the declaration the children had “programme-directed themselves”. Which they had.

They ad-libbed some of the formalities, took selfies with the president, and when little Jordan was too shy to hand over the declaration to the president, it was the children who, much to the seeming delight of the president, took his hand and coached him in what to do.

Without trying, they added an authenticity, emotion and genuineness to what, as a civil society-led initiative, should never have become a stolid event. But it was this lack of decorum, the age and boldness of the participants that resulted in
the most pushback from those in authority.

As one member of the children’s support team explained, even those tasked with forming policy on children’s behalf seem to find child-led dialogues and their voices confronting or uncomfortable.

And it was always going to be an uphill battle. Children20 had its genesis during the Brazil presidency on the G20 in 2024, but despite the recommendation for child participation, the Brazilians, who undoubtedly had their hands full institutionalising the voices of civil society in the G20 by means of the Social Summit, were not able to get it ratified. The upshot was that South Africa entered the G20 presidency cycle with the role of children uncertain.

Not only was the Children20 not recognised as a formal grouping in the Social Summit, but the Youth20, which is a formally ratified grouping, chose to produce a chairperson’s report this year rather than a formal declaration because, as group’s sherpa attested, they have yet to have any of their G20 recommendations implemented.

Nonetheless, the South African children’s sector (through the South African National Child Right’s Coalition, Unicef, Nelson Mandela Children’s Fund, Save the Children, Childline, Hold My Hand, DGMT and others) began lobbying for recognition of a formal children’s engagement group immediately after the handover. It was a request that was denied. Organisers were forced to proceed without it.

Despite its lack of a formal mandate, the sector began to mobilise children to provide input, forming a WhatsApp group amongst the children to get them talking, creating and distributing child-friendly content and planning for a pre-summit (amongst the many barriers to children’s input, the summit was scheduled for November in the middle of their
exams).

‘The future is our voice. Our voice is now’

It was this pre-summit that produced the Children’s Declaration, but despite tireless efforts from the children’s sherpa and organising committee of Children20, children nonetheless entered into the Social Summit without a designation, with their contributions falling out of category.

The relegation of their engagements to the furthermost corner of the event, despite the gravitas of contributions from the AU, Sherpa of Y20, the Brave Movement and others, was proof of their uncertain status and organisers were fearful that they would end up being a side event as they had in Brazil.

Moreover, despite the conference organisers stating publicly that children would hand over the G20 Social Summit declaration, there was immense pushback, both from formally designated groups and from officials worried that the children may be embarrassing, wouldn’t understand or be able to answer questions, or be unable to acquit themselves
well. It was a battle to the end.

It was why there wasn’t a dry eye amongst the adults in the Children20 team when the children handed over the summit declaration. Far from being a clever PR stunt, doffing a hat to the UN Declaration on the Rights of the Child, it was a triumph in the ongoing fight to get children seen and their voices heard.

Equally significant is news that the hope expressed by 16-year-old Sesona Qhimngqoshe, a member of the Children’s Parliament, will be fulfilled. She asked the G20 leaders to officially make Children20 part of the formal engagements in each G20 so that the children of South Africa can hand over to the children of the United States.

The children’s 2025 input has been officially recognised and they’ve been asked to submit their participation reports to the G20 sherpa. While uncertainty remains about how the United States will lead the 2026 G20, formal registration of the Children20 will occur prior to next year’s summit. The upshot is that children’s input will now be harder for those
in authority to ignore.

To quote Sesona, it’s proof that for children “anything is possible if you put your mind to it”.

It’s fitting that the children should have the last word. The Children’s Declaration concludes: “Listen to us, work with us, build the future with us. The future is our voice. Our voice is now.” Are we listening?

Robyn Wolfson Vorster is a child protection advocate and founder of For the Voiceless.

First published in News24 on 28.11.2025. To cite, please attribute to Robyn Wolfson Vorster from For the Voiceless and note that the article was first published in News24.