Baby in the bush an ‘indictment of society’
● A KwaZulu-Natal mother who abandoned her baby girl this week with a note begging others not to judge her was failed by an ineffective support system, according to child welfare experts.
The woman, Nomalanga Msomi, 23, from the Waterloo informal settlement in Verulam, handed herself over to the police three days after leaving her daughter in long grass alongside a bag containing nappies, a bottle and pacifier.
She also left a letter voicing her desperation: “Hi. You might be wondering why I dumped my baby. Don’t wonder, just help her if you can or call authorities. But don’t judge me. I have spoken twice with social workers, they [are] delaying to assist. I know this looks bad but I had no option. The system is fragile ... and we can’t even abort safely anymore … Hospitals have strict rules.”
A person picking mangoes found the three-month-old girl on a patch of land between a soccer pitch and a church in Verulam.
A private security company was alerted and the baby was later handed to social workers. Msomi appeared in court on Thursday on child abandonment charges and was granted bail of R500, which was paid by her mother.
Contacted for comment, Msomi’s mother said the family had been instructed not to speak about the case.
Youandi Gilain, director of Isaiah 54, a children’s sanctuary that runs a project to support struggling mothers, said the case showed how mothers are failed “all the time”.
“Most government abortion clinics only take a few women in a day, are judgmental and often refuse the abortion as they force [the mothers] first to speak to their family. Our system is broken. It’s not about if you think she should have ‘closed her legs’, or if abortion is murder or whatever the case may be, it’s about how can we help and protect.”
Gilain cited a case during the lockdown two years ago when another Durban mother placed her daughter in a baby safe at Isaiah 54. When the organisation made an online appeal for the mother to come forward, she did so.
“She had just panicked and didn’t know what to do anymore,” Gilain said. “She lost her job when lockdown started as she was a domestic worker. She wanted her baby more than anything but she needed help.”
The organisation raised R3,000 to support the mother over six months, helped her find a job and sent her home with food, nappies, baby clothing and toiletries for herself.
“Two years later, the mother and daughter are thriving because they were helped.”
Nadene Grabham, operations director at the Door of Hope Children’s Mission in Johannesburg and co-founder of Baby Savers SA, said Msomi had been failed by society.
“Her community, the father of the baby and those who are employed to help in situations like this, also failed her.”
Grabham said research showed leading causes of child abandonment include restrictive legislation, poverty, rape, genderbased violence, HIV/Aids, lack of paternal and family support, substance abuse, prostitution and failed illegal abortions.
Amnesty International SA executive director Shenilla Mohamed said that although SA had a progressive legal framework, with abortion a constitutional right for 25 years, many women and girls — especially in the poorest and most marginalised communities
— still struggled to access safe abortion services.
Lack of information and a shortage of health facilities providing abortion services were major factors, Mohamed said.
The KwaZulu-Natal health department said it would not speculate on what the mother meant about not being able to have a safe abortion.
“The department has 56 health-care facilities which provide termination of pregnancy services across the province,” said spokesperson Ntokozo Maphisa.
He said three of these — the Tongaat, Phoenix and Ndwedwe community health centres — were not far from the place where Msomi’s baby was found.
The law allows for abortions within the first 12 weeks of pregnancy. Beyond 20 weeks, a pregnancy can only be offered under exceptional circumstances.
KwaZulu-Natal social development spokesperson Mhlaba Memela said the service offices in Phoenix and Ndwedwe had no record of a mother coming in to seek assistance.
Our system is broken. It’s not about if you think she should have ‘closed her legs’, or if abortion is murder … it’s about how can we help and protect Youandi Gilain, pictured