Bhisho on lookout for relatives of 165 kids

The Eastern Cape department of social development is looking for family members of 165 children in a quest to reunite them or formalise their foster care.

The department listed the names of 165 children currently in foster care in an advertisement published this week, stating it was “looking for the biological parents and next of kin for the children listed”.

Department spokesman Mzukisi Solani said: “This is a statutory requirement as demanded by the courts for all children who are up for fostering. We need their parents or next of kin to come forward so as to verify that indeed there is no one else who can take care of them hence they need fostering.”

The children are with foster families, but a verification process is being conducted to formalise and verify the foster care arrangement.

“Sometimes people want to foster children that they are not even related to and the court always wants fostering to be the last resort. For the fostering process to be complete we need this verification,” Solani said.

The new list has, however, highlighted a crisis of absent fathers in South Africa.

While mothers’ names were listed in the advert, the names of many fathers were not, and instead “unknown” or “whereabouts unknown” was written next to the fathers’ missing details.

“There are various reasons why children end up going for foster care but our intention is to protect the wellbeing of the children, even if foster care is the route to take,” said Solani.

Once the foster care application has been completed, the foster parents can apply for a grant of R960 a month from the SA Social Security Agency.