/CORRECTED REPEAT/RIGHTS: Abandoned Babies Trend Worries Swazis

By James Hall Reprint | | Print |

James Hall

MBABANE, Swailand, Jul 2 2002 (IPS) - The drama of a terrified crying baby abandoned in the arms of a stranger in an Mbabane hospital last week, while the mother walked away never to return, prompted front-page news coverage in Swaziland. Such cases continue to provoke shock in this nation of strong family values.

The plight of abandoned babies has inspired some deep social soul searching in this traditional kingdom.

“No matter how often we find a mother walking away from her infant, it still causes us to shake our heads, and brings a pang of pain in our hearts. All Swazis react this way,” says nurse Agnes Kunene of Raleigh Fitkin Memorial Hospital in Manzini, the country’s most populous urban centre.

The nature of some child abandonment cases is enough to concern anyone, particularly those in which the baby’s life is endangered.

“We call it baby dumping, because that is what it seems like. The mother is just throwing away her child,” says Wilton Mamba, editor of the Swazi Observer newspaper.

Mamba estimates that two abandon baby cases come to the media’s attention each week from all parts of the country. He feels there are many more such incidents that go unreported, representing a widespread phenomenon for a nation with a small population of less than one million people.

Assistant Superintendent Vusi Masuku, public relations officer for the Royal Swaziland Police Force, says if an abandoned baby can be traced back to its mother, she is charged with attempted murder. “In fact, many babies have died of exposure when left on the roadside.”

Babies are also abandoned under bushes. Africa’s predatory species like lions and leopards are now found only in game parks in Swaziland. But dogs can devour a dead baby, leading to particularly grisly newspaper stories.

“The most unfortunate site where mothers abandon babies is the pit latrine,” says Thobile Dlamini of the counselling NGO Swaziland Action Group Against Abuse. “On one hand, it is obscene that a human being, a baby, can be treated like dirt when its own mother drops it into a latrine. But it can also be a fortunate location because there have been many cases where people have heard the baby crying, and the fire and rescue services have been able to retrieve the child alive.”

Counsellors like Dlamini make no excuses for women who abandon their babies, but they see the problem as a result of social change that puts great burdens on young women. At the same time, modern Swazi girls no longer have the safety net of the multigenerational family unit where previous generations customarily saw to each other’s needs.

“A child mother today is all alone,” says nurse Kunene. “She may live by herself, have little education and limited resources, and no one to advise her. The days of arranged marriages are over, and today girls are quick to fall pregnant from boyfriends who do not have marriage in mind. In the past, the granny would take care of the baby for the mother.”

The policy of the country’s secondary schools is to expel pregnant students. Finding jobs to support a child is difficult when unemployment stands above 40 percent in a nation where two-thirds of the people live in poverty.

The traditional Swazi way to handle out of wedlock births is for the mother’s family to sit down for an extensive palaver with the father’s family, and an agreement is arranged for the child’s support and upbringing.

“Today, the traditional family has atomised. Everybody lives scattered all over, and the authority of the elders is diminished,” says sociologist Charles Mnisi. “One young girl, I think she was 17, was arrested after she tried to get rid of her baby, and she told the court that she was afraid of her mother. The mother would condemn her for getting pregnant and leaving school.”

Usually, courts and traditional authorities will return the baby to the mother. Police press ahead with a child endangerment charge, but if found guilty the mother is given a fine rather than jail time.

“We believe the mother is still in the best position to care for her child,” says abuse counsellor Dlamini. “We see the mother’s action as a cry for help. She reacted out of panic, because she was all-alone and did not know what to do. The fathers are no where to be found when this happens.”

Practically speaking, social welfare authorities have few options for the care of abandoned babies. Orphanages are few in the kingdom, and in appalling condition. Adoption is viewed with confusion by a traditional society that recognises the legitimacy of parent and child relations only through blood. While legal adoptions are granted by Swazi courts, society views such arrangements less as a total parent-child bonding known in Western societies than a custodial relationship, a charitable “sponsorship” of a needy child.

Mothers who abandon babies but are later reunited with their children are given psychiatric counselling, says Dr. Thandie Malepe of the Manzini Psychiatric Centre.

Doo Aphane, legal consultant with the Swaziland Branch of Women in Law in Southern Africa, blames women’s legal status as minors in the kingdom for the increase in baby abandonment. “Women in this country cannot own property or sign contracts without their husbands’ consent, and gender equality is still far off. Girls think they must do anything their boyfriends want, and the boyfriends want sex.”

Notes Pholile Dlamini, an AIDS activist and counsellor, “Swazi men, from teenage boys to cabinet ministers, they can be quite cruel about denying their fatherhood. This leaves the young mother who can barely support herself with the dilemma of an unwanted baby she does not know how to bring up.”

Ultimately, empowerment of women through meaningful, career-oriented education and expanded economic opportunities will shift girls’ goals away from pleasing boyfriends to carving out independent lives.

“Abandoned babies will be fewer because pregnancies will come when it is right for the mother, as it should be,” says nurse Kunene.