Focus on abandoned babies controversy

A wave of baby murders are commanding front-page news in the small conservative kingdom of Swaziland. But while editorial writers are denouncing "mother murderers", women's rights groups argue the rising number of abandoned babies are a symptom of gender inequality in this traditional society. On Thursday last week, a baby wrapped in a blanket was left by an unknown person on the white line separating the lanes of a highway entering Manzini, Swaziland's most populous urban area. The baby was scooped up by a motorist before he could be run over, and taken to hospital. That same day, the excitement of scavengers at the municipal dump at the Matsapha Industrial Estate outside Manzini turned to horror when a plastic bag they at first thought contained meat, proved to be the burial shroud for a baby's corpse. "Women who abandon their babies in fields and alongside roads will be arrested for child endangerment. Women whose abandoned babies die will be charged with murder, and so will of course women who kill their babies," Willie Masuku, public relations officer for the Royal Swaziland Police Force told IRIN. Masuku appeared on Swazi television to beg destitute women to accept counselling and consider options like putting a child up for adoption as alternatives when they are faced with unwanted pregnancies. But, according to an attorney with the Swaziland chapter of Lawyers for Human Rights, if murder charges are to be filed, "to be morally tenable, the man who impregnates a women and runs away rather than assuming responsibility for a baby is a contributor to the outcome if the baby is abandoned or killed. He must be charged as an accessory to murder." In Swaziland, women are legal minors who cannot take out a bank loan, own property, or enter into a contract without permission of a male relative. Some men take advantage of women's lack of rights by promising to maintain indigent women in exchange for sex, and then abandoning them when pregnancy occurs. "It is like child abuse, where an abused child will grow up to abuse children as an adult. The abandoned woman will abandon the baby who results from an exploitative liaison," Agnes Kunene, a social worker in Manzini told IRIN. As proof of gender bias in Swaziland, Kunene pointed out that the police and the Swazi media all condemned "murderous mothers" for the dead baby found at the dump site and the baby left in the middle of the highway. "No one knows who abandoned those babies. The police have no clues. It could have been the babies' fathers who don't wish to support them. It could have been relatives of the mother. It could have been the mother's father who does not want to pay a penalty for his girl breaking the 'umcwasho' chastity rules," Kunene said. The custom of umcwasho, where young women wear woollen tassels to show their adherence to traditional rules that forbid sexual intercourse before marriage, is criticised by Doo Aphane, legal advisor for the Swaziland branch of Women in Law in Southern Africa. "The reintroduction of the custom by royal authorities was done without consulting the girls. It was imposed. If a girl falls pregnant, her family must pay a fine of a cow. This is a terrible burden during a time of food shortages," she said. To illustrate the pressure girls face to maintain chastity under the reintroduced umcwasho rules, a pregnant teenager hung herself last month, and left a note saying she could not face her family. In half of the 20 recent cases of baby abandonment where a mother was traced by police, the young women or girls who were arrested said they were afraid of their families' reactions to the birth of their babies. Senator Mbho Shongwe became the first Swazi official to call for legalised abortions last month in parliament. "Girls who can afford it go across the border to have the operation done in South Africa. Poor girls risk their lives with kitchen table abortions here. It is a reality, and we have to face up to it. Abortion will save girls' lives and will end the abandonment of unwanted babies," he told IRIN. "Abortion is murder. Baby dumpings are murder. The mothers leave their babies in pit latrines and in the bush where they can be devoured by dogs. This shows the level of sin that abounds in the country," responded Reverend Jabulani Dlamini from the rural district of Mliba. Eighty-percent of respondents to a questionnaire published by the Times of Swaziland, after Shongwe proposed legalised abortions, shared Reverend Dlamini's views. The senate on Thursday submitted a motion to the Ministry of Health and Social Welfare to construct "a relief village which will take care of children from helpless mothers and families". But such a complex would not address the underlying cause of baby abandonment, which is poverty and women's inequality, activists warn. "Women need to be economically empowered so they do not have to give in to demands for sex in order to survive," said Aphane.