The Department of Social Development said it has registered successes in its ongoing programme to bring home distressed children born to South Africans women serving time in different prisons across the world.
Some of the children’s mothers who were convicted on drug trafficking charges while they were pregnant.
In March, IOL reported that a toddler born in a prison in Dakar, Senegal, had been brought to South Africa where she will grow up with her family in the Eastern Cape.
The girl’s grandmother was nominated as her guardian while her mother serves her sentence in the West African nation.
In an interview with broadcaster Newzroom Afrika, spokesperson for the Department of Social Development Lumka Oliphant said a child has recently been repatriated from Philippines where its mother is incarcerated.
“We recently repatriated one in the Philippines last month. We are working with Dirco (Department of International Relations and Cooperation) at the moment to repatriate a child who is five-years-old who is in a Mauritius prison where the mother was also arrested for drug trafficking,” said Oliphant.
She said in some countries, if the child delivered by the South Africans serving time are not repatriated, the minors could be assimilated into the host countries.
There are South African mothers arrested in countries including Senegal and Brazil, whose children will be brought back through the intense efforts of the Department of Social Department, working alongside other government agencies.
“Remember we are also about strengthening families, protecting children but also prevention of any social ill,” said Oliphant.
She said her department consults the incarcerated mothers and get the green light on who they would want to receive and be guardians to their children born in the foreign lands.
The children are their brought back home and through the work of government, be integrated into the nominated families in South Africa.
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