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TWO-YEAR-OLD SLEEPS IN DOGHOUSE SETTING

13/01/2019 05:30:00 BY WELCOME DLAMINI

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MBABANE – The level of neglect that a two-year old toddler has gone through is overwhelming.

First, he was abandoned by his mother and now his biological father has teamed up with his stepmother to inflict on him, the most despicable treatment one can imagine.

The father is employed as a driving school instructor in Matsapha while the step mother is a teacher at a community school in Mankayane.
He is neglected to such an extent that he does not have a name and a birth registration card.

Two health motivators, otherwise known as bagcugcuteli, who were visiting all homesteads in the rural area of Kakholwane to weigh children, were shocked to their wits to find the two-year older sleeping in the dog shelter.

ONE WAS MISSING

Forty-nine-year-old Thembi Sikhondze – one of the motivators – related how upon reaching a Manana homestead, they found two children with their mother, but noted that one was missing.

“I have always known that there were three children in the homestead and when I asked the mother where the third child was, she said there was no third child. But luckily, as if the child wanted to be seen, we saw his arm protruding from a dog shelter. I drew my other colleague’s attention to this and we went to see what was going on, and what we found was unimaginable,” she said.

Sikhondze said teye found the child naked, evidently starving and with mosquito bites all over his body.
“Even scarier was a large lump on his back whose cause we don’t know but seemingly he was badly assaulted. There is a dog that sleeps in that shelter and the child sleeps with it,” she said.

She said when they asked the step mother why the child was being kept in the dog shelter, she (step mother) said she did not care because the child was not hers.
“She said her children were the other two. She said the other child was her husband’s responsibility, not hers,” Sikhondze said.
She said it was on a Thursday when they discovered the terrible living conditions and thought things would be better when they left because they had moved him out of the dog shelter to be with the other children.

“I returned to the homestead and was shocked to find that he had been put back into the dog shelter. It became clear to me that he spent the night there. I told the mother that what she was doing was wrong and against the law, but she arrogantly told me that no one can arrest her for neglecting a child that is not hers. She said the child had no clothes hence he was naked,” the motivator related.

Sikhondze said the woman then said her husband was angry at her (motivator) for having come to the homestead to weigh his children and bothering their peace.

WEIGHED AT HOSPITAL
“She said her husband said I should mind my own business and stop weighing his children because they were weighed at the hospital. I told her that I had been trained to do what I was doing and I was going to fight for the rights of the child. I told her that I was going to the police station to report the matter and she quickly went into the house to pack her clothes.” she said.

She said she then left and fortunately came across the police along the way on other policing business and informed them about the neglected child.
“When we went to the homestead with the police, we found her and her two children on their way, having left the other child in the dog house. The police even took pictures of the child inside the dog house and then took him to hospital,” Sikhondze said.

The child is currently admitted to the Hlatikhulu Government Hospital and it has been gathered that he was to be taken for an x-ray yesterday to determine the extent of damage caused by his living conditions.
Yesterday, the police went back to the homestead where they arrested the father while the step mother was reported by her husband to have left for her parental home in Mankayane.

Sikhondze said she wished the woman could be beaten up and taught how to be a proper and caring mother.
“That woman is not a mother. She needs to be taught how children are taken care of even if they are not yours biologically,” she stated.
Another woman of the area, identified as Zanele Vilakati, was also at pains describing the child’s situation.

MINDER FOR A MONTH
“I was the child’s minder for a month in November last year when his father asked me to take care of him in the absence of the step mother who was away at her workplace. I agreed to take care of the child but I was soon to regret that decision because the father never bothered checking up on him or bringing him food,” she said.

She said even when the child fell sick, the father, when told about it, would suggest that they gather wild plants and prepare a concoction for the child.
“Together with my husband, we decided to no longer bother the father because we saw that he did not care about him. “The child became our responsibility and he soon adjusted to living with us fulltime. He was growing like all other children and we felt sad when the father took him away in December as he said the stepmother had come back and would take care of him,” she said.
Vilakati said she, however, got to learn that the child was not being taken good care of because every time she passed by the homestead, she would see him alone near ash dump while the others children were happily playing around the yard.

BODY WAS FRAIL
“I could even see that his body was frail and he could no longer walk yet when he was with me he had started walking perfectly. Even when I saw the mother going to town, she would be with the two other children and not him. I later learnt that she always locked him inside the house,” she said. She said she was not surprised this week when heard that police officers had rescued the child.
“I just wish the father had not taken him away from me,” she added.
Chief Police Information and Communication Officer Superintendent Phindile Vilakati said the man had been charged under section 48 of the Children’s Protection and Welfare Act 2012.
Section 48(1) states that: “Any person who, being a person having the care of a child abuses, neglects, abandons or exposes the child in a manner likely to cause the child physical, psychological or emotional injury or cause or permits the child to be so abused, neglected, abandoned or exposed commits an offence and is liable on conviction for the offence to a community based sanction or to imprisonment for a term of not less than five years.”
The sentence may include an additional binding agreement on the offender binding him with sureties to be of good behaviour for a period to be specified by the court.
Vilakati said the police were still looking for the stepmother to also face similar charges.

MATTER NOT REPORTED
In another incident of child abuse, the Swazi News yesterday reported that a two year-old toddler had been raped, allegedly by her grandfather and the matter was not reported to the police but kept a family secret.
However, the matter has since been exposed and the Deputy Prime Minister’s office has promised that heads will roll.