Pregnant women need interventions before they give birth to prevent the crisis of abandoned babies, says Hotel Hope’s newly appointed CEO, Sihle Mooi.
Raised in Soweto by a single mother, he studied law and has spent his life dedicated to helping women and children in one way or another. Before, he headed Rays of Hope in Alexandra for seven years, which helps child-headed households and orphans.
“Some hospital staff and even social workers frown on mothers with crisis pregnancies and often do not want to facilitate a woman who feels she cannot keep her baby.”
Supporting these women is a mission he and others want to focus on. “We have so many babies needing adoptive parents, a process that is much easier if we have the mother who can go through the process with us.”
When a baby is found abandoned, or even if it was safely relinquished by an unknown mother, the process to place the baby up for adoption takes much longer. “If the mother can formally sign the child over to the courts the process is relatively quick. If not, local media adverts need to run looking for family members, blood and other tests need to be conducted and only when the window for someone to claim the baby has lapsed can it be placed on the adoption roll.”
Nobulali Kundayi, a social worker at Hotel Hope in Melville says, “In this case, it is often only after about nine months that it can be placed with a family.”
Main reasons mothers feel they have no choice but to abandon or relinquish their babies:
- Poverty
- Postnatal depression
- Incest or rape
- Isolation
- Ill health
- Shame
- Lack of education
“If our medical and support services were better, difficult endings for crisis pregnancies would be so different.”
Despite their difficult start in life, babies in the care of places like Hotel Hope are cared for and loved while the adoption process runs its course. “We have no say in where children are placed as that is handled by the adoption companies. It is always a bittersweet moment when the little ones we have loved and lived with find their forever homes because it is impossible not to bond with them. But we are grateful that people open their hearts and homes to give these children a happy and safe place to grow up and be loved,” says Kundayi.
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It remains illegal to abandon a baby as there are no safe haven laws in South Africa
