A Bulwer mother has been arrested for murder after she dumped her newborn daughter in a toilet pit.
|||Durban - A Bulwer mother was arrested this week for the murder of her newborn baby. On Tuesday, police went to the Ngxola area in Bulwer and found the body of a baby girl which had been dumped in a pit toilet.
The mother of the child was immediately arrested.
Police spokeswoman Lieutenant Joey Jeevan said preliminary investigations established the woman had given birth to the little girl earlier in the day.
“She then allegedly strangled her child and wrapped her in a blanket and threw her in the pit,” Jeevan said.
Family members, who knew the woman had given birth, became suspicious when they did not see the woman with her baby, and immediately alerted police.
The woman will appear in court on Friday charged with murder.
Social worker Dianne Yeats told the Daily News the abandonment of babies was a “disturbingly common occurrence” in South Africa among young mothers who were unable to cope with the financial and emotional expectations of raising a child.
She said depression could also be a reason.
“Post-natal depression emerges after birth and babies are usually abandoned within the first 24 hours,” she said.
The personal circumstances of the mother were often the most telling factor when it came to the abandonment of babies, Yeats said.
“Aids is a reality in today’s society and is ripping families apart. Most young women who are affected by Aids, and are also in the grips of poverty, do not possess the emotional, mental or financial capacity to support a child.”
Pregnancy as a result of rape was also seen as a possible reason for infanticide and abandonment.
In June 2007, a baby was rescued from the bottom of a pit toilet in Edendale. The baby was found to be suffering from hypothermia and ant bites.
His rescue made headlines after the infant survived 12 hours in the 2m deep pit toilet in freezing temperatures. His 23-year-old mother was later arrested for attempted murder.
Daily News