Baby saver advocates are demanding urgent progress on the Children’s Amendment Bill as newborn babies continue to be abandoned in bins, beneath bridges and in public spaces, with an estimated 3,500 infants abandoned in South Africa each year.
Image: IOL Graphics
Advocates for safe baby relinquishment are calling for urgent progress on the Children’s Amendment Bill, arguing that regulated baby savers could prevent unsafe infant abandonment.
South Africa does not have a reliable, up-to-date national database recording every abandoned baby, with an estimated 3,500 babies reported abandoned annually said Youandi Gilain, director of Isiaiah 54 Children's Sanctuary - a place of safety for abused and abandoned babies and children in Durban. She is also the founder of Open Arms SA, an online helpdesk for pregnant women and birth mothers.
On Thursday, a baby was found dead in a bin in Capricorn in the Muizenberg district. On Tuesday, a woman dumped her newborn baby under a pedestrian bridge in Merebank. Police spokesperson Captain Ntathu Ndlovu said the Wentworth SAPS have opened a case of concealment of birth. He said investigations into this incident are underway.
On Sunday, Durban police found a dead baby boy near Addington beach in Durban, partially covered by sand. And a newborn baby girl was found alive inside a plastic bag in an open veld in Doornfontein, in July. The public alerted Johannesburg Metropolitan Police Department (JMPD) officers to the sound of a baby crying.
Gilain said even more devastating is the estimate that for every one baby found alive after unsafe abandonment, two are found dead.
Gilain’s sanctuary is just one of many organisations challenging proposed changes in the Children’s Amendment Bill, which concerns the legality of baby saver boxes. These boxes are mounted on walls in designated areas where parents can anonymously relinquish a newborn baby, instead of abandoning them in bins or in public spaces where they are exposed to danger.
In May, the Portfolio Committee on Social Development received a progress report from the Social Development Department on the status of the Children’s Amendment Bill. Committee chairperson Bridget Masango said the committee expressed deep concern about the revised timeline, which pushed the introduction of the Bill in Parliament to March 31, 2027.
“Members across party lines strongly condemned this timeline as unacceptable, pointing to the escalating crisis of child abuse, infant abandonment, and gender-based violence,” she said.
Masango described the delay as completely outside the scope of the original mandate given to the executive. At the same time, the committee demanded accountability for the administrative bottlenecks that had stalled the Bill first initiated in 2020.
Following sustained pressure from the Committee, Advocate Gugu Thimane, Social Development Acting Director-General, said all department mandates would be completed no later than the end of Quarter 4 of 2026, rather than the suggested March 2027 target.
Concerned groups on the Umhlanga Promenade, in May 2026, in support of Baby Savers and safe relinquishment in South Africa.
Image: Open Arms SA
The Deputy Minister of Social Development, Ganief Hendricks, said the Bill was referred back to the executive to address several concerns. He noted that the government does not agree with NGOs about baby boxes and is engaging with them on the issue.
Hendricks said there remained a persistent ideological divide within the social services sector, with current government policy leaning toward alternative safety models rather than the installation of baby bins or drop-safe infrastructure. He acknowledged that this was a contested area and indicated that the department continued to engage with stakeholders on the matter. That was just one example of many disputed clauses.
The department's Mahlogonolo Sebopela said they had received 1,817 public submissions and undertook extensive consultations across government departments, civil society and technical stakeholders to consolidate the input on the bill.
The Social Development Department has said it opposes baby savers because there are no legislative provisions in the Children’s Act that mandate their existence. It says the Act already has adequate child protection measures to care for and protect abandoned children. The department states that baby savers encourage child abandonment, which is a criminal offence.
The department says the practice encourages infant abandonment, promotes the birth mother relinquishing her parental responsibility with no consequences, silences the voice of the father who also has a parental responsibility as well as the family of the baby, robbing the child of a right to a name and identity as enshrined in the Constitution.
Paulnita Marais, representing the EFF in the committee, questioned why legislation intended to address issues such as the tracking of baby savers remained stalled, while reports of infant abandonment continued to appear daily in the media.
“Children would continue to die in 2026 as a direct result of administrative foot-dragging,” she said.
Gilain disputed the public perception that destitute or drug-addicted pregnant women might be at risk of dumping babies and whether enough was being done to collect a database of these women.
“I don't believe a database of women who are considered likely to abandon their babies is the answer. Firstly, how do we decide which pregnant woman belongs on that database?”
Gilain said poverty does not make somebody a bad mother, and that addiction does not automatically mean a woman will abandon her baby either. She said a teenager hiding a pregnancy, a woman experiencing domestic violence, a rape survivor, an undocumented woman or someone terrified of her family may be just as vulnerable.
“We have to be extremely careful that in trying to protect babies we don't start profiling and stigmatising vulnerable pregnant women. What I believe we desperately need is a much stronger support and referral network,” she said.
The network includs clinics, hospitals, social workers, NGOs, shelters, substance-abuse programmes, SAPS and community organisations.
Gilain said they should know exactly where to refer a woman who says, "I am pregnant and I cannot do this."
Gilain called for crisis-pregnancy support system that women can access without judgement and without fear. She said women need to know their options early: assistance to parents where possible, temporary support, adoption processes where appropriate, and safe relinquishment as a last resort.
“The problem is that many women in crisis don't know where to go until they are standing somewhere with a newborn baby in their arms and are completely desperate. We need to reach that woman before she reaches that moment,” Gilain said.
She said when volunteers don't reach the woman in time, there still needs to be one final safety net that protects the life of her baby.
“That is where a baby saver comes in. We will continue fighting, because for us this is not about winning an argument with the government; it is about keeping babies alive,” she said.
Gilain said she did not see March 2027 as "extra time" because babies are still being abandoned unsafely with every day that passes.
“We have just seen that again in Merebank. A newborn baby was found in a refuse bag under a bridge. That baby did not have the luxury of waiting until 2027 for legislation to change. In the same 24 hours there was a baby found abandoned in a shopping bag alive,” she said.
Gilain said they needed to use this time to educate, advocate, engage with the government and challenge misconceptions around baby savers.
“A baby saver is not there to encourage a mother to abandon her child. It is there for the mother who has already reached the point where she believes she cannot keep her baby. At that moment, we have two choices: she can leave that baby somewhere dangerous and hope somebody finds them, or we can give her a safe place where that baby will be found within minutes,” she said.
Youandi Gilain, (far right) Director of Isiaiah 54 Children's Sanctuary - a place of safety for abused and abandoned babies and children. She is also the founder of Open Arms SA, an online helpdesk for pregnant women and birth mothers. She joined a recent protest in Durban in support of Baby Savers and safe relinquishment in South Africa.
Image: Open Arms SA
Gilain would prefer a woman to contact the organisation so that staff could sit down with her, hear her story, look at her circumstances and see whether there is a way to support her to keep her baby.
“Safe relinquishment should always be the last option. But when all of those options have failed, there must still be a safe final option,” Gilain said.
She asked whether people would prefer babies being abandoned in bushes and toilets, or beneath bridges, or that they be placed somewhere safe and alive.
Gilain explained that Baby Savers South Africa reported that approximately 580 babies have been safely relinquished through baby savers since 1999. This was when Door of Hope, a place that cares for abandoned children, was established. Gilain said they now have approximately 40 baby savers throughout South Africa. .
“These are the cases that force us to confront what unsafe abandonment looks like. This is why I struggle to understand the argument against baby savers. A baby saver does not solve the circumstances that brought a woman to that desperate moment. We absolutely need better prevention, pregnancy support, social services, counselling and intervention long before she reaches that point.”
She said baby savers were not the solution to baby abandonment, but the final safety net that can mean the difference between a baby being found alive and a baby being found too late.
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