Zim parents desperate to be back with their children

The parents of eight Zimbabwean children who have been detained by the Department of Social Development for three months do not know where they are.

Grace* arrived in Rustenburg to see her six-year-old boy on Wednesday, but was first told by social workers at the centre where he had stayed that she was not permitted to see him. Then on Wednesday afternoon she learned the children including her son had been moved to an unknown destination.

Eight children, aged two to 12, were being kept against their parents’ wishes at a youth house in Rustenburg, after the truck they were travelling in from Zimbabwe to their parents in Cape Town was intercepted in November. The children were coming  to visit their parents who are illegally in the country and do not have visas. Many of the children do not have legal documents, were not travelling with their parents and are considered unaccompanied, according to the parents’ advocate Simba Chitando.

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