Gauteng’s Social Development MEC condemns abandoned babies to their death

Dear Editor

The Gauteng Provincial Department of Social Development’s (DSD) directive dated 4 October 2023 to all Child and Youth Care Centres (CYCCs) and child protection NGOs who operate baby savers to immediately halt and shut down this life-saving intervention, has condemned abandoned babies to their death.

The directive shows that DSD has little understanding of the meticulous protocols baby savers, as a mechanism of safe relinquishment, ascribe too. DSD also fails to provide any viable alternatives, which further highlights DSD’s utter detachment from the reality faced by desperate and vulnerable mothers struggling to survive South Africa’s harsh socio-economic climate shaped by 30 years of failed ANC policies.

DSD’s premise for the directive could not be further from the truth.

Contra to the directive, baby savers do not compromise the protection of children, nor does it encourage infant abandonment. An infant cannot be denied “a family name, identity, cultural and religious practice” nor reunited with family relatives if said infant is dead, abandoned unsafely in open fields, pit latrines, or public restrooms as South Africa has witnessed on numerous occasions.

DSD missed a crucial point in that the rights of children has per the South African Constitution Section 28 can only be executed if the child’s right to life as per Section 11 is first and foremost secured. Enforcing this directive will abolish an infant’s right to life through unsafe infant abandonment.

Baby savers fill a necessary gap in the child protection and social welfare system. A gap left by DSD’s inability to employ more social workers who are currently overwhelmed by huge caseloads, adequate funding of NGOs, and increases to the value of the child support grant to bring it in line with the food poverty line as recently recommended by a study commissioned by the National Department of Social Development, Reducing Child Poverty: A review of child poverty and the value of the child support grant.

Desperate mothers are often turned away from their families, police stations, public hospitals and social workers when attempting to safely hand over their infants, which due to various reasons, they can no longer care for. A prime example was in October 2022 when a 23-year-old mother from Verulam, KwaZulu-Natal abandoned her 3-month-old baby along a stream in Dawncrest and left a note detailing how on two occasions social workers failed her and her baby and that the “system” is fragile.

According to media reports, 62 infants have been found abandoned 2023 (up until August) thus far, of which 12 were in the Western Cape, 14 in Gauteng and 19 in KZN (noting there is a gross underreporting on the issue of infant abandonment).

This gap in the child protection system and a detailed explanation of how baby savers operate was well-ventilated during the public hearings on the Children Amendment Bill, however, its inclusion was dismissed and side-lined due to National DSD and Social Development Minister Lindiwe Zulu’s more pressing concern of meeting the North Gauteng High Court order deadline in relation to the foster care backlog crisis.

It is hypocritical for the Gauteng MEC for Social Development, Mbali Hlophe, to now be the voice of biological fathers when during deliberations on the Children Amendment’s Bill it was her own party, the ANC, who used their majority in the portfolio committee on social development to silence the voice of biological fathers when they refused to incorporate amendments in the bill to strengthen rights of biological fathers.

Enforcing this directive will remove a thin safety net for unwanted infants via registered and vetted NGOs and give rise to illegal and black-market criminal organisations as child trafficking becomes more prevalent.

The DA has repeatedly written to Parliament’s social development portfolio chairperson, Nonkosi Mvana, requesting MEC Hlophe to appear before the portfolio to account on various matters, but the MEC appears to be shielded by her ANC comrades in Parliament. The DA will once again write to the chairperson requesting the MEC appear before the committee.

The DA will also write to the South African Human Rights Commission (SAHRC) regarding the violation of Section 11 of the South African Constitution, as well as Minister Zulu regarding her stance on the directive and to request the Minister’s urgent engagement with MEC Hlophe to withdraw the directive which condemns infants to cruel and inhumane abandonment which evidence has shown, will likely lead to their death.

The list of ANC and DSD failures are many, with the number of human rights violations mounting, however, this senseless attack on defenseless infants is the pinnacle of the ANC’s moral decay.

The DA stands in solidarity with the many child protection organisation in Gauteng and South Africa who, in the face of threatening and intimidation tactics from the Gauteng Provincial Department of Social Development, continue to save and protect infants and children in worsening socio-economic conditions.

Let us always remember the teachings of the late President Nelson Mandela: “The true character of a society is revealed in how it treats its children.”

Regards

Alexandra Abrahams MP
DA Shadow Deputy Minister of Social Development