It’s been four years since Namibia legalised ‘safe relinquishment’. This followed government, civil society and the ruling party’s youth and women’s leagues declaring child abandonment a national crisis when 13 babies were found dead every month. By ...
in the Bill to focus exclusively on foster care. All discussions about safe relinquishment were also shelved, and despite commitments that the remainder of the clauses would become a committee bill, nine months later and the bill is yet to reappear on the committee’s agenda.
“The Children’s Amendment Bill did not make provision for safe abandonment of children nor does it seek to decriminalise safe abandonment. The matter arose as part of the public hearings. If it has to be considered; such consideration will be unconstitutional as it will be in contravention of Section 28 of the Constitution.
They further argue that, across all levels, government has proved very poor at the early identification of at-risk women, providing counselling and support, and assisting mothers to exercise options other than raising their child. And, they argue, the situation has become worse over the last year since the department made this policy statement.The failure is painfully illustrated by the stories of four mothers from four provinces, all experiencing a crisis pregnancy and trying to seek help.
In response, the KwaZulu-Natal MEC of social development Nonhlanhla Khoza, who cited the Veralum child’s story with two others in which babies narrowly survived unsafe abandonment: one where a newborn baby boy was left to drown in a pit latrine in northern KwaZulu-Natal, and another, in Newcastle, where a child was thrown out of a hospital window, said that it “was devastating to see suchThe MEC then insisted that mothers have “a lot of options” when facing a crisis pregnancy: “We encourage...
The baby’s father told her he didn’t care what happened to the baby, and it was her problem. He threatened to block her if she kept contacting him. Despite this, in Aphiwe’s words, the child welfare social worker assigned to her case told her that, “I should not give the baby up for adoption because it’s going to haunt me for the rest of my life… If I do, I will never have peace and nothing will ever go according [to plan] with my life.
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