A short and painful life
Toddler, 3, dies of abuse and neglect
ON Thursday, death climbed up 16 concrete stairs, entered the run-down semidetached council house in Havenside and claimed little Jamie Naidoo.
Hours later the limp body of the broken child — sporting a broken arm and burns on her forearms — was carried out in a plastic bag.
Amid speculation, anger and fear on the part of neighbours, Jamie’s 55year-old granny was escorted out of her house by two Chatsworth policemen. She and her 31-year-old daughter are in police custody pending a paediatric postmortem on the child.
Hours after the threeyear-old’s body was removed, people gathered outside the house.
On Friday, a relative who lived at the two-roomed house until last month spoke of the family.
The man, a former sugars addict in his 30s, claimed the mother didn’t care for the child. He said she had four children ranging from an 18-month-old baby to a nine-year-old — all living with the granny.
Beatings, he said, were a regular occurrence at the house. “Her mother didn’t care for her. She didn’t even have a little bit of love for her. When I was there, I tried to stop them. She was so small and quiet and yet she was hit all the time. I don’t know why. The police came but they turned a deaf ear. I couldn’t take it any more, so I left.”
A neighbour who was called to the house said the child’s arms and legs were broken, parts of her body were swollen and she had what looked like cigarette burns across her body.
Another spoke of how the sound of a child being slapped could be heard through the walls.
The neighbour claimed their calls to child welfare officials and Childline went unanswered. “We made so many calls. No one ever came and checked. Once we sat down and spoke to a social worker about what was happening there. She told us she would investigate and get back to us. We are still waiting.”
Chatsworth Child Welfare president Logan Naidu said the family were being regularly supervised.
He said that in 2011, the courts placed the children in the care of their grandmother after it emerged that the mother was soliciting and had a drug addiction.
He said the order expired in February and in order to extend the grandmother’s status as legal guardian, the children had to undergo a district surgeon’s examination, which was all clear.
Naidu said a social worker last visited the family in July. “I have various reports and all the complaints from the community about neglect are hogwash. They need to come forward.”
Naidu said he was “really disheartened” by the community’s reaction and would await the outcome of the criminal investigation.
Childline director Vanspiri Pillay said the organisation was “saddened” by the loss of the child. However, she couldn’t trace any complaints relating to the child or her siblings.
Jamie’s siblings have been removed from the home and placed with an unnamed relative.
An education official who is familiar with the family said he made two calls to the child welfare department in the last month alerting it to the living conditions of the children, but is still waiting for a response.
The official said a boy was once seen by a teacher walking barefoot along the main road at 6.30am. “He said he was going to buy snuff for the granny. The teacher was furious.”
On Friday evening, children from the district held a candlelight vigil outside Jamie’s home. Residents are banding together with family members to provide the child with a proper burial.