Social work has always been characterized by competing societal and professional mandates in relation to prevention of social ills, working toward structural socio-economic changes in the interests of people, direct remedial and therapeutic services and social control functions, the latter characterized primarily by the removal of children to protect their best interests.
Determining what constitutes the “best interests of the child” is not easy and social workers often experience distress and a great deal of ethical dilemmas in exercising such control functions. However, the recent mass removal of children with no assessment of the situation of the families involved and with no counselling and possible alternatives provided, flies in the face of all the ethical and professional demands of the profession.The Association of South African Social Work Education Institutions expresses its dismay and dissatisfaction at the unprofessional and forceful manner in which children on the street were removed from their parents, as witnessed on the SABC news on Friday, 13 August 2010, and in articles and photos published in newspapers of 14 and 15 August 2010. It is unacceptable for social workers to align themselves with power and to exercise such authority over the lives of families and children in ways that engender trauma and further disadvantages people who are already in vulnerable positions, often through circumstances beyond their control. The problems experienced by individuals and families, so-called “private troubles” cannot be understood and dealt with outside of their socio-economic and political contexts
The growing inequality, consequent primarily upon the free market ideology that dominates South Africa must form the basis of our understanding of the structural sources of disadvantage and poverty that place people in positions where they have to eke out survival through begging and piece-meal jobs on street corners. Such strategies might represent families’ desperate attempts to keep their children alive and to protect them from harm. Families are subject to the powerful constraints of structural unemployment, poverty and inequality. If external socio-economic constraints maintain families in poor, dispossessed and helpless positions how are such families expected to move toward independence and self-reliance within the same structural constraints? It is unfortunate that these structural constraints were not considered by the social workers and police who so forcefully, and with no consideration for the privacy and dignity of the individuals concerned, ripped the children from their parents.
In one case of the clean up operation, one of the men, working on the street repairing shoes desperately tried to explain that he had no alternative child care arrangements for the day. Was he being a more responsible parent by bringing the child along, rather then leaving the child locked up and unattended? Clearly in an ideal situation, the choices should not be the street, being left alone or being left with an unreliable adult that might abuse the child. This reflects, amongst other things to deal with the massive problems of poverty, unemployment and child abuse, the need for secure and caring child care facilities and for good quality early childhood education. But we do not live in an ideal world and as one of the children from the streets once told us: “Mam, sometimes we sit and we compare – home, street, shelter – and we don’t know which one is worse”. Our failure to protect our children is an indictment on government, civil society – on all of us. The plight of families is often a manifestation of these failures; to blame the victims and treat them with such indignity and brutality is morally indefensible.
Professor Vishanthie Sewpaul, President [ASASWEI]
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