Babies of the heart

The proposed amendments to the Children’s Act will dramatically limit the number of children who’ll find permanency through legal adoption placements. And the expertise and capacity that adoption service providers bring will also be lost to the sector, writes Karen Read

WHILE THE NUMBER of children in need grows, the number of adoptions is on the decline. It is estimated that about 3 500 children – mostly babies – are abandoned every year in South Africa.

This number accounts only for those who survive abandonment.

This chilling figure is the inspiration behind a recent public awareness campaign by Impilo, a Gauteng-based child protection and adoption agency. The Born To Be campaign culminated in the displaying of 3 500 donated babygros to visually depict the number.

If it’s difficult to visualise 3 500, try 3 000 000. That’s how many orphans there are in South Africa, according to the National Adoption Coalition:

1.8 million paternal orphans, 500 000 maternal orphans, and more than

600 000 double orphans.

Yet, the latest adoption statistics reveal that between 1 April 2017 and 31 March 2018, there were only 1 033 adoptions nationally in South Africa.

This is less than half of the 2 400-odd adoptions between 1 April 2010 and 31 March 2011. And experts say that if the latest proposed changes to the Children’s Act are passed into law, the impact on adoptions in South Africa will be devastating.

There has been an outcry since the beginning of the year, when it was reported that the proposed amendments to the Act will effectively undermine the constitutional, legal and human rights of children to family life through adoption.

Among other things, the Children’s Amendment Bill makes it illegal for anyone to charge fees for adoption services, thereby forcing would-be adoptive parents to use the services of social workers employed by the state. No one would object to this if it weren’t for the claims that government has an unstated bias against adoption.

In a debate on SAfm’s Stephen

Grootes show, Conny Nxumalo, deputy director-general of welfare service at the Department of Social Development (DSD), denied this: “We regard adoption as one of the designated child protection measures provided for in the Act… and we’re aiming to increase them in SA.”

The department has 889 social workers who have been trained to carry out adoptions, and the DSD wants to make this service free to improve access to adoption. “Yes, we have a shortage of social workers, but that doesn’t mean we can’t provide the service,” she said.

But Karabo Ozah, an attorney and the deputy director at the Centre for Child Law, was critical of the assumption that scrapping fees would lead to an increase in adoptions. “An honest debate needs to be had. What is the government’s attitude to adoption? Fees are not going to resolve the issue of whether we really believe adoption is an option,” she says. “Research has shown there are cultural reasons impeding adoption.”

Most orphaned children in South Africa are cared for by poor extended family, who receive a foster care grant.

“If you’re going to adopt a child, there is no monetary support from the state,” Karabo says, suggesting that this is a barrier to adopting.

Robyn Wolfson Vorster, an adoptive mother and advocate for adoption, told Stephen that while DSD social workers can now carry out adoptions, they don’t necessarily have the specialisation and experience that private social workers and child protection organisations have in handling adoptions.

“If the latter can’t charge fees, they will cease to exist,” she explains.

Attorney Debbie Wybrow, who is a child protection and adoption expert, agrees. “The effect of the proposed changes to the Act is that specialists – such as doctors, lawyers and psychologists – will no longer be able to serve adoptable or adopted children or their birth or adoptive families. Child protection organisations will close.”

Debbie says due process was not followed, and the policy that informed the Bill is defective and structurally unsound. “Abandonment is a growing concern, yet no provisions are made for parents in crisis to safely relinquish children. Most concerning, the Explanatory Memorandum filed with the Bill suggests children should rather be institutionalised than grow up in the care of families who are not of the same colour and/background. “There are too many gaps in the Bill for them to be patched. The Children’s Amendment

Bill must be withdrawn and reworked, with the input of all stakeholders and those serving children – and the children themselves. And only then should it be re-presented to parliament,” she says. The Bill does not go far enough to protect vulnerable children, Debbie says. Instead of entrenching children’s rights to be cared for within families, certain provisions denigrate those rights.

She has petitioned Cabinet, calling for the retracting and reworking of the Bill – her petition on Change.org has more than 51 000 supporters.