[2 Pics] South Africa: White Mothers for Black Babies - Dumped Black Babies & their White Mothers...

[This is one of the old but important stories from the original AfricanCrisis website that I am converting on to the new site, in the new format.

It is not common, but I still see white women who also have adopted black children. Once, in a shop here in Johannesburg, my Mother also noted how a white mother discriminated against her own child. The little white girl wanted a toy, and the white mom turned to her and said to her, "You have too many toys already". Then when the black child asked for some toys, her white mother bought it all for her. Jan]

	South Africa: Dumped Black Babies & their White Mothers I would like to show the other side of whites in Africa - a side never talked about. This is a cruel story well worth reading. But first, somebackground info: It is surprisingly common to see whites in South Africa adopting black babies. This particular storyis very cruel. Blacks have lots of babies - and a great many babies arejust thrown away. In this particular case a black motherbashed her newborn baby on the side of the head and thenthrew her in a toilet to die. A white Policewoman foundand adopted the baby. What is interesting is how many black children are abandonedand left to die in South Africa. It is white people who oftentake pity on these throw-away children and try to take careof them. I have noticed on numerous occasions in the mall orin a super-market, a white woman either with her own whitechildren and a black child among them, or a young white couplewho have adopted a black baby. I have never in my life seen a black couple adopting a whitebaby - but I have seen many whites - often well-off/upper-classwhites who have adopted black babies as their own and who raisethem. There is a famous instance of a white woman in Johanesburg whoadopted a little black boy who was dying of AIDS and who lookedafter him until he died. So many black babies are thrown away that in Johannesburg thereis an organisation which has a "baby box" at their gate - justfor throw away babies. They encourage black mothers who wantto dump their babies, to put the babies in this box and thenring the bell (and of course run away). In this way the babyat least does not die in a rubbish bin in some township or onthe streets of Johannesburg. This organisation which savesblack babies is run mostly by white women. [Jan] The following photos and the entire story is reproduced fromYOU magazine in South Africa. The original title was: My Baby Saved from a Toilet This photo shows the filthy house where Anel found the baby in a slop bucket. With her are baby Lisa and daughter Bianca (5).
	WHITE_MUM_BLACK_BABY_01.JPG
	Anel van Eyk is officially baby Lisa's foster mother.
	WHITE_MUM_BLACK_BABY_02.JPG
	The Full story of: My Baby Saved from a Toilet A SMALL wrinkled hand reaches for Anel van Eyk's blouse. Baby Lisa looks at her with big brown trusting eyes and frowns slightly-just as she did the day Anel, a police Inspector, rescued her from a slop bucket in a derelict house in New Brighton, Port Elizabeth. The infant's face was full of blood and she was barely breathing. But today Lisa - which means "bright future" in isiXhosa - seems radiantly happy. "She's not the baby I found then - now she's my baby," Anel says. On 25 November, a month before Christmas, a court gave Anel an early gift by officially putting Lisa in her foster care. "People say it's wonderful that I've given her a second chance and a new life but actually she's given me a new life." In 11 years as a policewoman Anel has seen more than enough horror. She helped to recover the body of a 60-year-old man who leapt to his death from Van Stadens Bridge. She found the decomposing body of an abandoned baby in KwaZakhele, another PE township. "I try not to get too involved in cases I'm investigating," she says. "I always distanced myself because it was just my job but with Lisa it was different. From the moment I held her cold little body in my arms I knew she was mine." Since then people all over the country have opened their hearts and pockets to Anel and Lisa. "Recently I had a message to say a woman was looking for me. It gave me a fright because I thought it could be a relative who wanted to claim her." But it was a township resident with a bag of clothes for the baby. What little she had she wanted to give Anel. But not everyone was happy with her decision to keep the baby. "When I told my mom she said it would only lead to trouble. Her generation grew up with different values but she may understand in time." She gets occasional disapproving looks when she walks around with Lisa and her biological children Bianca (5) and Ruan (7). "I don't care," Anel says. "They can stare all they like. Lisa is now my child and if they don't want to accept it it's their problem. God made our paths cross. Lisa had such a terrible start to life, she deserves a better future." SHE'LL never forget 13 November 2002. "That's the day I found my baby," Anel says, her voice trembling with emotion. She and a police colleague were filling their vehicle with petrol when they saw other officers running from a derelict house. They assumed they were investigating some crime and rushed to their aid. Inside the dark house she noticed a black bag in the corner of one of the rooms. It had been tied around a bucket. "I couldn't believe what I saw lying there in the human waste and rubbish - a little foot and a head turned upwards. At first glance the baby seemed to be dead." Then one of the police officers touched her forehead and it crinkled into a little frown. "Get me some gloves!" Anel shouted. She touched the baby gently on the arm - it was cold. She put the gloves on, put a hand under the infant's back and gently lifted her out. "Another policewoman wrapped her in a maroon towel - I'll never forget that towel." She tried to hug the baby and found the umbilical cord and placenta which were still attached. She wrapped them in the black bag that had covered the bucket. "Everyone wanted to know whether it was a boy or girl but there wasn't time to tell," Anel says. She checked only when the baby was safely in hospital. By now people from the neighbourhood had come to see what the police were up to. Some brought scissors to cut the umbilical cord and clothes pegs to tie it but Anel preferred to rush the baby to Livingstone Hospital. "She was making little groaning noises and I just hugged her more tightly." At the hospital the baby was given immediate care. "But I wanted to stay with her - I didn't want to leave," Anel recalls. Some time later nurses noticed a wound on the left side of the baby's head; the mother might have hit her to silence her. Two hours later Anel was still with the baby. "But it didn't matter. I just wanted to stay with my child. I'd already decided I was going to keep her." But she had to pick up her own child from a day care centre and the baby was taken to a place of safety. As Anel drove away she felt a deep sense of loss. IN the weeks that followed she visited the baby every day. She took Bianca and Ruan along to meet the infant and they bonded with Lisa immediately. "Bianca wanted to hold her all the time but Ruan wouldn't, fearing he'd drop her." The kids probably told friends and teachers at school about the baby because bags of clothes soon arrived at Anel's home. "When's our baby coming home?" Bianca asked. In the evenings, when they'd finished their Bible readings, the little blonde girl would pray: "Please be with my sister." Anel arrived hot and flustered at the court on 25 November. "Are you sure you know what you're doing?" the judge asked her. "We aren't talking about a Jack Russell puppy which can easily adapt to a new environment." Anel assured him she was going into it with her eyes wide open. She drove through the gates of the place of safety just before lunchtime. "I'm here to pick up my baby," she yelled excitedly at the security guard. A woman in the nursery embraced her and they both burst into tears. Anel is now Lisa's foster mother and if no one claims her before 31 March 2004 she'll be permitted to keep her. When she went to pick up the other two kids after the court appearance with the baby in her arms they all beamed with pride. "Is she really going home with us, mom?" Bianca shouted. "I just want to hold my new sister." Anel tries to involve Bianca and Ruan in the babycare routines and they help to bath and feed her and decide what she should wear. "I thank God they get on so well with her. She's already part of our family," Anel says. SOME of her colleagues and relatives have been a little off hand to her since she took the baby into her care but most people - even those she least expected it from - have been supportive, she says. Anel was divorced in 1999 and the children see their father regularly. "We'll talk about it later but so far he hasn't had a negative word to say about Lisa's presence in my house. "I thought I'd lose a few friends but in fact I've gained a few." Some have spoken of the difficulty of raising a child of a different race - of the 2,650 adoptions registered in SA last year only 400 were inter-racial. When Lisa's older Anel will probably tell her where she came from. "But I never want her to see herself as an abandoned baby. She must call me Mom. She's my gift, my miracle..." Source: YOU Magazine Date: 11 December, 2003

Posted By: Jan
AfricanCrisis Webmaster
Author of: Government by Deception

Date Posted: Monday 25-May-2009
I congratulate all those White mothers who take care of African babies as their own. I am African myself. Sometimes I feel that we have failed as mothers when I see a White woman with a Black baby but I console myself that if a woman risks the racial backlash that we all live with, she must really love that child. I am not a racist and learned to love White people growing in a far off African village in Kenya where our kind nurses, priests, nuns and teachers were White. Racism is learned or acquired from bad experiences and politics.

I love White children with their beautiful long hair.....we Africans are obsessed with long hair...but I do feel that it would be difficult to adopt a White child......we treat many of them as family if they live close to us but adopting is something we dare not try. During Katrina in USA, many Black women did save white children/youth.

I feel encouraged these days when I see more and more White people with African babies.....I say hi and ask them where they got the babies.....I am happy that the children are getting a second chance at life and that they are loved. Many African babies are very healthy the first year of life but die before the age of 5.

Congrats to those White mothers in S.Africa. There is nothing like the love of a child.A child is a child, Black or White. If we could be like children, loving unconditionally, the World would be a much better place. White people need not fear African people...at least not in Kenya where I come from....people are welcoming and always ready to be of assistance, more so to a White person, who will likely need this help more because he/she may not have any relatives around. Most White people who go to Kenya find this acceptance as we do not have racial hostility....it has never been a part of our upbringing. Please keep on rescuing those babies. Those teenage moms do not know better.

Anna Smythe
OTTAWA
n/a