Question NW3397 to the Minister of Social Development
24 November 2023 - NW3397
Marais, Ms P to ask the Minister of Social Development
What (a) are the reasons she and/or her department is removing baby savers, which have been a successful method of saving the lives of new-borns and (b) interventions will replace the system as the department has in the past failed to intervene?
Reply:
a) There are no legislative provisions for baby savers that mandates their existence in the Children’s Act which already has adequate child protection measures to care and protect abandoned children. Baby savers encourages child abandonment which is a criminal offence, and a person who abandons a child after birth may be charged and prosecuted.
The practice encourages infant abandonment; promotes the birth mother relinquishing her parental responsibility with no consequences, silences the voice of the father who also has a parental responsibility as well as the family of the baby, robbing the child of a right to a name, identity as enshrined in the Constitution.
b) Temporary safe care, child and youth care centres and adoption interventions are available as per the provision of the Children’s Act (Act No. 38 of 2005). The Act provides for the placement of abandoned children in temporary safe care pending further investigation and final placement through children’s court proceedings.