Cases of child abandonment reported in same week in Cape Town

An Atlantis community is left reeling after the discovery of a fetus, on Friday morning. According to police, the discovery was reported in Witsand.

PICTURE: Pixabay

The police’s FC van Wyk said a case of concealment of birth is being probed.

‘’Atlantis police registered a concealment of birth following the discovery of a fetus in a box in front of a container by a community member on 27 September 2024 in Chris Hani Street, Witsand, Atlantis. A postmortem will be conducted to determine the cause of death. No arrests has been made as yet and investigations continue.’’

In a similar incident, Nyanga police responded to a crime scene in the same week after a community member spotted dogs dragging a plastic bag containing the body of a baby. The dogs reportedly found the bag at a nearby dumping site and dragged it to a residence yard.

Authorities are investigating the matter.

Woman’s and children’s rights organisation, Philisa Abafazi Bethu, previously spoke to Bush Radio news about child abandonment. The organisation’s Lucinda Evans is in the view that Government needs to adapt its Children’s Act when it comes to child abandonment.

‘’It is an indictment that our Children’s Act has not been adapted to accommodate volunteering relinquishing of babies. If we had a better law, it would give a woman another option that she is not coping, that she can safely relinquish the baby at a hospital. So when a woman abandons a baby. she gets criminalized, but yet we have the highest rate of gender-based violence and femicide in the country.’’

 

Done By: Mitchum George