Question NW1085 to the Minister of Social Development
26 April 2022 - NW1085
van der Merwe, Ms LL to ask the Minister of Social Development
Whether her department will provide statistics on the total number of children who have survived abandonment annually since 2010; if not, why not; if so, what total number of such children (a) have been (i) reunited with family and (ii) adopted, (b) are still in institutions, temporary safe care and/or temporary foster care and in need of permanent family care and (c) are being added to the system annually?
Reply:
(a) (i) The total number of children reunited with families is 565 with annual breakdown from the following provinces:
|
PROVINCE |
TOTAL |
|
Limpopo |
14 |
|
FS |
19 |
|
KZN |
143 |
|
EC |
38 |
|
WC |
173 |
|
Mpumalanga |
15 |
|
Gauteng |
158 |
|
NC |
0 |
|
NW |
5 |
(ii) There are 893 abandoned children that have been adopted.
These numbers are from the adoption register database with the following breakdown:
|
Period |
Number of adopted children |
|
1 Apr 2010 to 31 Mar 2011 |
0 |
|
1 Apr 2011 to 31 Mar 2012 |
0 |
|
1 Apr 2012 to 31 Mar 2013 |
67 |
|
1 Apr 2013 to 31 Mar 2014 |
134 |
|
1 Apr 2014 to 31 Mar 2015 |
86 |
|
1 Apr 2015 to 31 Mar 2016 |
99 |
|
1 Apr 2016 to 31 Mar 2017 |
87 |
|
1 Apr 2017 to 31 Mar 2018 |
142 |
|
1 Apr 2018 to 31 Mar 2019 |
171 |
|
1 Apr 2019 to 31 Mar 2020 |
40 |
|
1 Apr 2020 to 31 Mar 2021 |
67 |
|
Total |
893 |
(b) The total number of children in Institutional care is 3 279 with provincial breakdown as follows:
|
PROVINCE |
TOTAL |
|
Eastern Cape |
255 |
|
Western Cape |
1 594 |
|
KwaZulu Natal |
1 129 |
|
Free State |
17 |
|
Mpumalanga |
0 |
|
Gauteng |
143 |
|
NC |
10 |
|
NW |
119 |
|
Limpopo |
12 |
Since 2010 there were 1 530 children in temporary safe care.
There is no provision of temporary foster care in the Children’s Act, 2005 (Act No 38 of 2005) only short term in accordance with section 159 and long-term placement in terms of section 186.
Since 2010 there are 507 adoptable children who survived abandonment and are in need of permanent family care. These figure is from the Register on Adoptable Children and Prospective Adoptive Parents (RACAP).
(c) The number of reported cases of abandoned children are added to the National Child Protection Register annually, with the following breakdown:
|
Period |
Number of abandoned children added on the CPR system |
|
1 Apr 2010 to 31 Mar 2011 |
135 |
|
1 Apr 2011 to 31 Mar 2012 |
71 |
|
1 Apr 2012 to 31 Mar 2013 |
128 |
|
1 Apr 2013 to 31 Mar 2014 |
134 |
|
1 Apr 2014 to 31 Mar 2015 |
41 |
|
1 Apr 2015 to 31 Mar 2016 |
24 |
|
1 Apr 2016 to 31 Mar 2017 |
45 |
|
1 Apr 2017 to 31 Mar 2018 |
144 |
|
1 Apr 2018 to 31 Mar 2019 |
229 |
|
1 Apr 2019 to 31 Mar 2020 |
40 |
|
1 Apr 2020 to 31 Mar 2021 |
67 |
|
Total |
1058 |