Without a trace: the shocking fate of South Africa’s
abandoned children
by Robyn Wolfson Vorster
Researching
child abandonment in South Africa is akin to opening Pandora’s box. Coupled as it is with illegal, late-term
abortion, the body count (when you can find them) numbers in the tens of
thousands, but could be many times that amount—perhaps we would know if the
government was ever prepared to count them.
Criminal activity and clandestine practices are commonplace, and even
for those children that survive, the result can be informal child trafficking
or long term institutionalisation.
Despite this, abandonment is not on the government’s agenda for the
upcoming “16 Days of Activism for No Violence against Women
& Children”, no statistics exist to quantify the problem, policing
is confined to opening inquests instead of murder dockets, and we seem entirely
devoid of strategy to end or even minimise this scourge. It begs two important questions: what becomes
of our “lost” boys and girls (who clearly aren’t in Neverland), and why do those in authority not seem to care?
Daniel* was the first
abandoned child that I had met (at least knowingly). As he played on the carpet with my son, his
adoptive mom told me that he had been abandoned under a highway bridge in
winter. Seeing me shudder at the thought
of a newborn, alone and icy cold, his mom shrugged. “He was one of the lucky ones” she said.
Despite the cold conditions, Daniel was rescued by a traffic officer and taken
to a Place of Safety before he could die of exposure. He was also better off than the two babies in
the cots next to his: one had been left to drown in a longdrop; the other buried
alive.
Since then I
have heard loads of abandonment stories, but Tami’s* is one of the most
shocking. Her mother aborted her when
she was just over six months pregnant.
Tami was born, tiny but alive, on the floor of a toilet in the hospital
where her mother (a nurse) worked, and then abandoned to die in a pool of blood.
She was saved by a fellow nurse, only to spend her childhood being passed
around in her community. By the time she finished school, she had lived
with 10 different families; knowing, but estranged from the woman who carried
her in her womb, who has never acknowledged her, or been sanctioned for her
crime. She survived to tell the tale,
and she too considers herself fortunate. Both Daniel and Tami are testament to
the everyday horror of abandonment, where margins are so small that only the
fortunate survive, and only the most fortunate avoid the long-term physical and
psychological effects of a terrible, fleeting act of desperation that can either
define or end a life.
These individual
stories are heart-wrenching, but it is only when we explore how many stories
exist (and tragically, how many do not survive to tell their tale), that we begin
to realise the extent of the problem. In countless cases though, both the
information, and the bodies, seem to have disappeared without a trace. It makes obtaining a full understanding of
abandonment in South Africa a bit like trying to complete a thousand piece
puzzle without the picture (and possibly without numerous pieces).
What we do know
makes for scary reading though. For years we have been quoting one confirmed statistic about abandonment: in 2010, there
were approximately 3500 children abandoned across the country. This number is
noteworthy for two reasons; firstly, because it is already five years old and
secondly, it only includes survivors of abandonment. The burning question must
therefore be: if 3500 children survived, how many did not?
Tracking the
dead is even harder than tracking the living.
One of the few statistics available is from 2012, where in Gauteng, only
about 60
out of every 200 survived—70% did not. The number may differ in other provinces (KwaZulu
Natal for example, report very high numbers of abandonments, others fewer). But if it is even marginally close elsewhere,
it is worth asking how so many children are dying in plain sight without drawing
public attention. According to
Nadene Grabham, the manager of Door of
Hope (a Place of Safety caring for abandoned babies), countless babies are simply
never found. And no wonder, in her 2014
thesis focusing on child abandonment, researcher and child protection
activist, Dee Blackie determined that nearly 70% of abandonments were unsafe. She
identified primary abandonment sites as toilets, drains, sewers and gutters;
followed by rubbish sites, dustbins and landfills; and then parks or open veld.
Bodies that are buried, flushed down drains or eaten by animals or rodents are seldom
accounted for.
But even when bodies are recovered, two rather troubling "anomalies" in
registering and managing abandoned babies’ deaths make compiling statistics
very hard. The first relates to how they are recorded by the police services. Following
the recent release of the country’s crime statistics, experts questioned why
abandoned babies had been dropped from the violent
crime category. There is no category for
abandoned babies, and the police confirm that when they find an abandoned baby,
they register an inquest (indicating an
unnatural death to be investigated to determine if anyone is responsible), rather
than categorising it as a murder or culpable homicide. Given that up to 65% of our abandoned children
are newborns and 90% under the age of one, it is uncertain how the SAPS
explain them “abandoning themselves”, but according to Luke Lamprecht, convener
of the Shaken, Abused and Abandoned Baby
Initiative, the results are two-fold: many of the inquests are never
investigated further, and abandoned children are not included in our crime
statistics. Even when charges are
forthcoming, they are usually on the lesser indictment of “concealment of birth”. Not only do we
have no idea how many such deaths are taking place annually, but, to quote crime analyst and
retired policeman Chris de Kock, “some people are likely to get away with
murder”. Either way, abandonment,
“becomes an easy option.”
To
compound the problem of tracking these deaths, there is also no longer a
category for abandoned children in the death statistics produced by our
mortuaries. This, despite the fact that a report on fatal
injuries in Gauteng in 2010, quoted local forensic pathology services as
saying that, “babies dumped in Gauteng were increasingly becoming a large part
of non-natural, undetermined deaths in the zero to four-year age group.” As confirmation, the Forensic Pathologist
Professor Jeanine Vellema said: “These
babies in dustbins, gutters, dumps...who are aborted or miscarried newborns
being disposed of...are becoming a large part of 60% of undetermined deaths (of
young children) in Gauteng." A study on child homicide by the Medical
Research Council in the same year found that 16% of child homicides were the
result of abandonment.
Since
2012 however, Forensic Pathology services have not officially tracked
abandonments. Instead, they have a large number of babies classified as
“stillbirths” in their records (even though stillbirths—seen as natural deaths—are
not processed through the Forensic Pathology mortuaries). Forensic Pathology
staff claim that these “stillbirths”, which number 1800 over three years in
Gauteng alone, are actually abandoned babies.
According to Lamprecht, the distinction is critical—to be classified as
an infant in South African law and have legal rights, a child
must take at least one breath. A hydrostatic
lung test would show that many or all of these babies were actually born alive
and died thereafter. To close the circle
of silence, mortality statistics in South Africa
specifically exclude stillbirths.
It is
hard not to conclude that these numbers—which for Gauteng confirm that for
every abandoned baby found alive, two are found dead—are being deliberately obfuscated.
And alarmingly,
this may only be a tiny fraction of the real problem. Our abandonment focus has traditionally been
around infants delivered on or around full term. However, the same report on child
homicide states that “while the abandonment of new born babies shortly after
birth is a huge problem requiring urgent attention, we are possibly reporting
only the ‘tip of the iceberg’ because [they] do not include ‘dumped foetuses’”. In support of this statement, the Medical Research
Council indicated
that “abortions were the leading
external cause of death in 2009 for children aged 0 to 4, where a cause of
death was known”. It is perhaps
unsurprising. Mortality
statistics also exclude abortions, but global reproductive health group Marie Stopes state that of South
Africa’s 260 000 annual abortions, approximately 52-58%
are illegal—that
is, up to 150 000 per annum.
Stereotypical
pictures of illegal abortion practices are of doctors with bloodied aprons and carving
knives, but modern “clinics” are usually run by criminals who illegally provide drugs like
Cytotec
(a schedule 4 drug used for the treatment of ulcers but with a known side
effect of producing uterine cramps) to bring on premature labour (or in less
sophisticated areas, make women drink chemicals). Women are instructed to take the drugs
(orally or vaginally) and then fain a miscarriage at a local hospital. They are sometimes told that the baby “will
dissolve” or be “flushed away”. But of
course, the babies don’t “dissolve” and although some of them are first and
second trimester foetuses not able to survive outside of the womb, many are
post-26 weeks and therefore viable. Like
Tami, babies often survive the abortion process—born alive, only to be
abandoned; or to die from prematurity, the effects of the abortion drugs or
even from murder at the hands of shocked and desperate mothers (or family
members), appalled at being faced with a living baby.
Lamprecht,
who has studied illegal abortions extensively, concluded that in Johannesburg
alone, up to half of the aborted foetuses found were actually viable. The conclusion cannot be applied wholesale across
the country, but even a smaller percentage of 150 000 annual abortions is still
a staggering number. What we know is that illegal abortions are growing the quantity
of dead abandoned babies exponentially, so much so that a state mortuary doctor
is quoted in Blackie’s research as saying: “we are swamped” with dead
babies “on a weekly basis.” Small wonder that no one wants to tally up the
figures.
But, if the numbers are so
big, why aren’t illegal abortions being better policed or managed? The answer
is complex. Despite isolated campaigns, the Department of Health argues that it does
not have jurisdiction over illegal abortion practitioners because they are not registered
doctors, and police say that their hands
are tied.
They cannot act without a complaint, and since the complainants would be pregnant
women, typically fuelled by a combination of shame and desperation and
themselves committing a crime, their co-operation is unlikely. Add to that the
clever strategies of illegal abortion practitioners and the lenient sentences
under the Termination of Pregnancy Act (a fine or
imprisonment for a period not exceeding 10 years), and it is no surprise that
the practice continues unabated.
However, experts also argue
for a lack of will on the part of authorities to face the problem. As with abandonment of full term infants, the
absence of quantification speaks
volumes. As far back as 2012, the
government admitted that more research was needed on the
problem of abandonment, but it is yet to be commissioned. No response has been forthcoming as to why,
but according to Blackie, it is not due to a lack of funds: this year, the
Department of Social Development returned R1.4 billion of unspent funds
to the treasury. Like the deceptive
death and police statistics, the dearth of research seems to amount to
plausible deniability, or worse, a lack of will to manage abandonment. Perhaps this is the real issue—if the
government does clamp down on illegal abortions and unsafe abandonment, it will
save tens of thousands of lives. But, it
has no plan to care for those survivors.
Herein lies the problem: surviving
may be "fortunate", but those who do don't necessarily fare well
either.
According to Blackie, not all
abandoned children make it into care. During her research, she tracked
multiple stories where the people who found these children and brought them to
the police were asked if they wanted to “keep them”. A simple affidavit was all that was required
to secure the “adoption”. In other
cases, abandoned babies were presented to someone in the community seen to be
in need of a baby. This practice, considered
by most participants to be an extension of Ubuntu, is usually well-intentioned. But, “informal adoption” can have very
troubling consequences because even if recipients care for the child, the
process bypasses the Children’s Act and the stringent checks upon which
adoption is contingent. In addition,
children often end up with no legal documentation and cannot access welfare
grants, medical care or schooling. Add
to that a tenuous link to the family and the common practice of child
disbursement, and these children frequently become easy targets for abuse and trafficking.
Worryingly, no one is trying
hard to hide this illegal and morally ambiguous practice, and chief
perpetrators are employed by the state. It seems to be
directly linked to government policy, where the primary caregiving strategy for
orphans is kinship care, predicated on knowing your family. Seen as “weggooi
kinders”—unwittingly estranged from family and community—abandoned children often
fall through the cracks.
In fact, although the
government publicly advocates for family care for these children, unspoken
negativity towards adoption and the resultant "constructive prevention of
adoption",
lack of funds to advertise for birth families, along with the overloading of
the foster care system, mean that abandoned children often end up in some
variant of child and youth care centre, and stay there far too long. Notwithstanding
good intentions, these centres are often overloaded and underfunded. This is
particularly detrimental in the first 1000 days of life says Lamprecht, when a
lack of stimulation and touch can result in long term changes in brain
structure leading to memory problems, learning difficulties, behavioural and
attachment problems, and possibly even sociopathic behaviour later in life.
In addition, caregivers sometimes
lack the expertise and resources to manage the worst consequences of illegal
abortions and abandonment. Dr Janet Lumb
of the Thusanani Children’s Foundation
(which provides therapeutic and medical care to children in care facilities) says
that of the abandoned babies she sees, half were abandoned unsafely and about
60% were born prematurely (some are as small as one kilogram). These babies often experience developmental
delays and some are physically scarred, especially from rat bites and burns. Frustratingly,
she says, even the worst affected thrive under care, and special needs
adoptions are surprisingly common (especially to overseas families), but many children
are not provided with those opportunities.
It becomes a heart-breaking self-fulfilling prophecy:
too many in authority believe these children won’t amount to anything and ironically,
our strategy for their care is making this a reality.
The societal factors resulting
in abandonment are unlikely to diminish in the near future so this may all seem
like doom and gloom. But experts have long been calling for constructive
changes to help minimise this scourge. Proposed
solutions range from crisis pregnancy counselling to effective
policing, facilitating safe abandonments to policy amendments across a number
of sectors. We also need to focus on increasing the numbers of adoptions in
South Africa, and improving the process.
For the "lost" boys in J.M. Barrie's far more whimsical tale
about abandonment: Peter Pan, the answer
was adoption: permanent care in a loving family, and in South Africa, adoption is
still the best solution for meeting these children's needs in the long term.
Above all, someone needs to
add up the numbers: the inquests, concealment of birth cases,
"stillbirths", police reports and the numbers of children in the
child protection services. Until then, we cannot know what the picture on the
puzzle really is, and policies and interventions (and articles) are forced to
rely on educated guesswork.
Regardless, three things are
clear: Child homicides are preventable so
death
through child abandonment and illegal abortions must be stopped, abandoned
children (alive or dead) cannot stay hidden, and for policy makers, plausible
deniability is no longer an option. Whatever happens next, someone will be accountable.
*names
changed to protect their identities
