They are out on the street having fun, leaving their children to be cared for by their grandparents, family members (sometimes even by strangers) or left alone at home.
They are out on the street having fun, leaving their children to be cared for by their grandparents, family members (sometimes even by strangers) or left alone at home.
Many young people of today are using drugs and alcohol, which has resulted in an increase in teenage pregnancies and a strong demand for child support grants.
The child support grant is often seen as motivating teenagers to become pregnant at an early stage. Then they drop out of school and spend the money on drugs and leave the child in the care of the grandparents.
Lulama Ntlanganiso from Scenery Park in East London reports that they had a problem with a daughter who left her child and ran off to Johannesburg.
“She used to go out to nightclubs and drank away the child grant money, leaving the child with the grandmother,” she said.
Ntlanganiso further explained, that “the grandmother is distraught and does not even know who the father of the child is and where the daughter in Johannesburg lives.
We have lost contact.” The Department of Social Development is there to take control of situations like these.
They can take away the grant if the mother is no longer the primary caregiver of the child, yet she still receives the grant.
Cora Hendricks in the department’s East London office said this is a not only a provincial problem, but a national one and the government is going to put a stop to it.
The department has social workers in every community who work with communities to try and solve problems like these. Otherwise, communities end up with uneducated young people.
The South African Social Security Agency (Sassa) is also playing a part because they issue the social grants. Sizo Gwarube, communications officer at Sassa, said child grants are paid to caregivers, parents and guardians.
They are expected to use the child grant to the benefit of the child and any misuse of grants that is reported is dealt with immediately.
“Every parent or guardian has to be trusted that he or she will take necessary responsibility in the upbringing and livelihood of the child,” he said.
Contributing factors to this national problem could be social ills, such as poverty, unemployment and an uneducated society.
Here in the Eastern Cape they deal with an average of 10 cases a month. Sassa depends on stakeholders and the general public to report abuse to them.
In cases where it is found that the child is not being taken care of, Sassa socialworkers take the child to a proper place to stay, or to a responsible family member.
The grant is then diverted to the new care-giver. The family of Lulama Ntlanganisa reported the incident to Sassa, which removed the grant away from the daughter and transferred it to the grandmother.
