When cash trumps care

CRISIS: PARENTS WEAPONISE SASSA CHILD SUPPORT GRANTS, LEAVING CHILDREN NEGLECTED

- Jarryd Westerdale

NO CHILD'S PLAY. Social workers face intimidation as parents cling to grants, exposing cracks in a welfare system meant to protect the vulnerable.

(iStock)

Maintaining access to a South African Social Security Agency (Sassa) grant is being used as a motive for negligent parents to fight the potential removal of their children.

Social workers get trapped attempting to maintain balance in these heated domestic conflicts, but face intimidation and threats of violence to tip the scales in the favour of desperate parents.

The Gauteng department of social development (DSD) confirmed multiple cases of intimidation have been reported, while one case highlights the extremes to which vulnerable children can be subjected.

A Johannesburg woman caring for a neglected child relayed the roller-coaster of emotions suffered by her and the small boy she was caring for.

Not wanting to be named, as the boy's biological parents have threatened her with violence, the female caregiver first came into contact with the two year old in February 2024, when he was found unsupervised at a tavern near Orange Grove.

The child was again abandoned at a crèche in the same suburb in May 2024 and then at Edenvale hospital in June last year, after being admitted for malnutrition.

After the tavern incident, the boy's mother signed an affidavit allowing the child to be placed in the temporary care of the woman until the mother was fit to take him back.

The hospital incident prompted another affidavit confirming a more permanent agreement.