Zim woman desperate to get baby back from SA social welfare

Memory Konjiwa comes from Chiva. It's a small town, with no industry, and she had little chance of making a living in Zimbabwe.

Konjiwa fled to South Africa, leaving her four-year-old son behind, to try and to find a way to make money to feed her family.

Life hasn't been easy. She lives in an abandoned building in Joburg. There is no electricity, and curtains separate the beds as people crowd in, looking for a warm place to sleep. Nine months ago, Konjiwa's baby was taken away from her.

She was begging at robots in Bryanston in October when two social workers approached her. They said they wanted to take the baby away.

"We beg at the robots because with the money we can buy clothes and food for our family in Zimbabwe. We know we are low, but we are working hard to try and improve our lives," Konjiwa said. "We came to South Africa looking for a living."

She remembers that she refused to give the women her child. They came back with the police and she was taken to Douglasdale police station.

"They threatened me, saying I had no papers and they would lock me up. They took away my child," she said.

The 26-year-old mother was told that to get her child back, she needed to get a job and a better place to stay, or her baby would need to stay with her parents in Zimbabwe.

She was given a court date, and she went home to Zimbabwe to ask her mother to come and get her baby.

"My parents sold two goats to get here. They struggled crossing the border, and even got thorns in their feet. But when we came to the court, the social worker just said to us: 'I'm not in the mood to deal with you and your baby.' We stood crying, but nobody felt pity," she said.

Her mother returned home empty-handed.

Since then, the baby has been living at New Jerusalem and House of Hope Youth Centre, and Konjiwa has to go to a social welfare office once a week to see him for an hour.

"Sometimes I have no money, so I can't go and see him because I can't go empty handed, without a yoghurt or something. They give the baby to me in the office. I hold him for a little bit and then they make me leave. I'm always crying," she said.

Konjiwa does not have papers and is worried she will be deported. If she is, she's not sure what will happen to her son.

Gauteng Department of Health and Social Development spokesman Simon Zwane said they had removed the child after people complained about the mom begging at robots with him.

"The child was severely malnourished and the mother complained that he had no food to eat," said Zwane.

He said they had taken the decision to remove the child as it was in his best interests.

"The mother was advised to get a job and a proper place to stay, as she was staying at the Methodist Church then, and is staying in flats in Johannesburg, illegally occupied, without any electricity or water," Zwane said.

He said they were trying to place the child with his maternal grandmother in Zimbabwe or his paternal grandmother in Krugersdorp.

Ingrid Palmary from the African Centre for Migration and Society at Wits University said cases like this showed there needed to be a policy change in the way migrants are treated.

"It's a situation that so many undocumented mothers find themselves in. This is a woman who cannot access her child, but it may very well be a migrant subjected to a terrible crime that they are too scared to report," she said.

Palmary said it was a difficult ethical situation because the child needed to be taken care of, but there were so many mothers in South Africa who lived in poverty with little support.

"To look after the child in these conditions is difficult and there are very few crèches that they can access and afford, to allow them to go and work," she said.

Palmary said there needed to be a more constructive way of approaching the situation.

All Konjiwa knows is that she is desperate to get her child back.

Other women she lives with have also had their children removed, but all of them have been returned.

"It would be better for me to be arrested, because at least there they let you keep your baby. I am willing to do anything to get him back.

"I can't explain the pain. I feel so sad leaving my baby behind. When I eat, I think that maybe my baby is not eating."