Children’s charities have reported a sharp rise in the number of babies abandoned by mothers driven to poverty and desperation in recession-hit South Africa.
Many care homes have warned they are full and cannot cope with the surge of babies and children being left in hospitals, on the street or in dustbins.
Last week a three-day-old boy was found with his umbilical cord attached and cuts on his body after being dumped in a bin full of broken bottles.
The increase in abandoned babies is attributed to South Africa’s worst recession in nearly 20 years, which has left many women homeless and unable to feed themselves or their children.
The charity Tshwane Place of Safety says it gets 12 requests a day to take abandoned babies, compared with less than one a day last year. There are 255 babies in its 100 safe homes in the Pretoria area with no capacity for more.
“This year has been absolutely crazy,” said Jeanette Birrell, the charity’s managing director. “A lot of girls falling pregnant now don’t have an income. They’re living on the street, they don’t have a home and they’re desperate. Rural girls are not educated in contraception and they fall pregnant. Another problem is prostitutes who have babies and abandon them.”
She said the majority of women leave their babies in hospitals.
“The mum goes in and gives false information, says she’s going to the loo then disappears. But some babies are left in dustbins wrapped only in a blanket so they come in freezing,” she said.
Birrell said most of the abandoned babies are black or mixed race, but there had also been a huge rise in the number of white children taken away from their families as a result of poverty, neglect or abuse.
Tshwane Place of Safety gives the abandoned babies to volunteer families who care for them until they are adopted or returned to their biological families.
But some volunteers are giving the babies back because they can no longer afford the costs involved.
Birrell said the problem was compounded by a lack of social workers.
Other agencies have reported a similar rise. South Africa’s Star newspaper reported that the number of children abandoned increased by more than 100 percent between 2007 and last year, although it did not provide figures.
Door of Hope, a charity in Johannesburg, has a “baby bin” at a church where babies can be left 24 hours a day. It has seen the number of babies abandoned increase from five a month three years ago to an average of 15 a month now.
“There’s high unemployment and more refugees coming to Johannesburg from Zimbabwe and Congo ... These mothers are in a very desperate situation, living on the street without enough food for themselves so they can’t breastfeed the child,” Door of Hope general manager Russell Ames said.
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