Johannesburg - Baby Michael, Baby Daniel and Poppie would be alive today if the people who knew about their abuse just spoke up.
The three children were throttled, beaten, burned and eventually killed by the people who were supposed to love and care for them.
In each case, someone knew of their suffering, and said nothing.
Now Women and Men against Child Abuse (WMACA) are preparing to fight for the Children’s Act to be amended, making it a crime for people not to report the physical abuse or deliberate neglect of children.
Baby Daniel was tortured over an extended period of time. His elbow, femur and ribs were broken and 60% of his body was burnt.
Luke Lamprecht from WMACA said 15 wounds found on Baby Daniel’s body were each enough to separately kill him.
“The excuses proffered by his abusers varied from ‘he fell into a bathtub full of hot water and accidentally hit his head in the process’ to ‘he fell from a bicycle and injured his arm’. It was claimed that the 3-year old walked into a glass door and bruised both eyes.”
Lamprecht said Daniel was seen by doctors who had had their suspicions.
“Then, another doctor confirmed abuse. That doctor was obligated to and did report the matter to her social worker in the Department of Health. They don’t have statutory authority and should have gone straight to the designated child protection social workers and Family Child and Sexual Offences (FCS) Unit of the SAPS.”
Lamprecht said when the FCS Unit knocked on the door of the Naturena home where the boy lived, the mother’s boyfriend, Timothy Naidoo, told them he knew nothing and insisted that everybody who lived there was fine.
When MES, the Child Protection Social Work agency designated by the Department of Social Development phoned, they were told everything was fine - they did nothing.
“Three months later he is murdered. He was burned and had blunt force injury wounds. Naidoo was found guilty of premeditated murder which is a precedent and the child’s mother, Maryke Cloete, was found guilty of deliberate neglect and sentenced to 25 years with 20 years direct imprisonment.
“During the trial we learnt that the grandparents knew, other family and neighbours knew, too. Definitely the maternal grandmother knew... (the very people) in whose care they want to put the remaining children.
“If you have a brain, you know that that’s a conflict. The social worker was happily going to take the child from a place of safety and allow them a weekend visit in that grandmother’s care. They forgot to do a home visit.”
Lamprecht said Section 54 of the Sexual Offences Act stipulated that any person must report knowledge of sexual abuse of a minor, but in the case of physical abuse and deliberate neglect, the obligation only rests with professionals. “That is a fundamental problem,” he said.
“Section 110 of the Children’s Act says I must report it if I know a child is being abused. The important part here is knowledge. I must report the knowledge I have of any child who is abused… why is physical abuse and neglect seen as a lesser criminal crime offence? There is a challenge to the common law defence of reasonable chastisement before the Constitutional Court, he said.
“What the hell is reasonable? Physical abuse and deliberate neglect should be reported by anyone for investigation. And should be brought before a court to adjudicate and not like in Baby Daniel where the police and social worker decided that the doctor was wrong. What right did they have to decide?
“The case should have been brought before the court, the doctor called and evidence led to determine if the child was in need of care and protection, which Daniel clearly was.
“What the law has to do is take into consideration that South Africans are not reasonable… the law has to intercede and build on common law. And it has to say in very simple terms if you do A it is abuse and if you see B, which was A, you must report it.
“Why should we have to tell you that you should report abuse of a child or else we are going to have you locked up?” The fact that people could not see it was their moral duty to do so, he said, meant his organisation had no option but to try to get the law changed to make it a criminal offence not to report the abuse.
Other child protection advocates welcomed the initiative. Lowina Fourie, the child and family unit manager at Joburg Child Welfare, said: “In our experience, it’s either the community, or a sympathiser in the community who will report abuse and neglect, like a neighbour.
“I think people try to cover up within the family, especially with sexual abuse because of the shame. NGOs or teachers in a community pick up when a child is not fed properly or comes dirty to school and the parents are not visible. I think physical abuse should be regarded with the same seriousness in the law because children die from it.”
But not all child protection advocates believe mandatory disclosure of physical abuse or deliberate neglect of children is a good solution in South Africa. Consultant Dr Joan van Niekerk believes introducing such an amendment to the Children’s Act could leave children more vulnerable.
“Kudos to the Men and Women Against Child Abuse for really searching for a solution to the challenges we are facing in the child protection field. But we are not ready for a blanket mandatory reporting at the moment. We do find that children are punished for having reported abuse in the first place to someone. And are often left in a situation where they are more vulnerable than before.”
Van Niekerk said South African social workers and police are often inadequately trained to deal with child abuse, and at times don’t provide proper protection for abused children.
“Internationally, the feeling is that if you don’t have the resources to respond appropriately you need to make sure that mandatory reporting laws don’t put children more at risk”, she added.