Drug-mule mom’s boys in ugly family drama

Lumka Olifant spokesperson for the department of Social Development leads the children with a social worker to Minister of Social development Bathabile Dlamini. before being flown out to KZN to be placed in the care of a foster family. The two boys were rescued off the streets of Sao Paolo in Brazil after their mother was arrested in Portugal for drug dealing in december last year. Picture: Antoine de Ras 06/11/2014

Lumka Olifant spokesperson for the department of Social Development leads the children with a social worker to Minister of Social development Bathabile Dlamini. before being flown out to KZN to be placed in the care of a foster family. The two boys were rescued off the streets of Sao Paolo in Brazil after their mother was arrested in Portugal for drug dealing in december last year. Picture: Antoine de Ras 06/11/2014

Published Nov 10, 2014

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Johannesburg - The Department of Social Development has placed the two children it repatriated from Brazil in a place of safety while it tries to unravel the convoluted mystery of the children’s relatives.

The children arrived in South Africa last week.

Their South African mother has been in jail in Portugal for drug smuggling since December last year.

She left the children in Sao Paulo, where they spent months on the street before officials put them into a place of safety.

Department officials have now found that the drug-mule mother has five children.

She has two younger children, born in Brazil in 2008 and 2010, who live with the woman’s uncle in KwaZulu-Natal, and her eldest child lives in Nigeria with his father.

When the two children who were repatriated to South Africa last week arrived, the mother had allegedly nominated a relative in KZN for the children to stay with.

However, Social Development spokeswoman Lumka Oliphant said on Monday morning that when the department spoke to the woman shortly before placing the children with her, she said the boys’ mother had called her from Portugal saying her uncle and aunt should be the foster parents.

Oliphant said the department could not place the children with the uncle and aunt because the latest agreement had been made verbally and was one to which the department was not party to.

The department interviewed the uncle, who is the same uncle who is looking after the woman’s two youngest children – the ones born in Brazil.

“The children are younger than the ones we repatriated last week and they came at different times last year, one in September and the other in October,” said Oliphant.

“This means that the children are not South African citizens and we can’t automatically change their citizenship without the consent of the parents.

“However, we are obligated to document them as unaccompanied minors and they have equal rights as other children to go to school, access health care and get social grants.”

Oliphant said the department had also found out that one of the younger children born in Brazil shared a surname with the Nigerian national with whom the two boys were living in Sao Paulo after their mother was arrested.

It’s not known what his relationship is to that child.

Further investigations into the drug-mule mother’s background revealed she got a child support grant for a child born in 1999.

Oliphant said the repatriated brothers last week told officials they had an older brother whose father took him to Nigeria – the child born in 1999.

As it is now, the department has taken the boys to a foster home of its choice, as they try to help the court come to a decision on whom they should stay with.

“For the courts to come to a decision, we need to do an investigation.

“The Children’s Act is silent on the rights of natural foreigner fathers of children born out of wedlock but very strong on the rights of children to have access to both parents,” said Oliphant.

“We have now developed a plan of action for the finalisation of the legal placement of the children.

“We need to help the court make a decision in the best interests of the children.”

Oliphant said the department was in the process of documenting the two youngest children so that they could qualify for grants and other assistance from the government. Both the uncle and aunt depended on their old-age pensions and they needed all the help they could get in raising the children, Oliphant said.

The department is also trying to trace the fathers of the children.

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The Star

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