South Africa: the doors of orphanages where abandoned babies fail
When the shrill alarm sounds in the Door of Hope orphanage in Johannesburg, all eyes are turned to a CCTV screen.
In the image, inside a "baby box", a metal cube embedded in the garden wall to collect abandoned children. Today is a false alarm. But the night before, when the alarm sounded, an infant was in the box. "A five-month-old boy, a healthy baby," says Francinah Phago, manager of this children's home run by the Door of Hope association. In 15 years, the former kindergarten teacher has seen dozens of children in this box installed in 1999.
About 3,000 children are abandoned each year in South Africa, according to the National Adoption Coalition. A figure that reflects only part of a problem that regularly makes headlines: often abandoned in their first weeks of life, sometimes in dangerous conditions, many children die before they are found again. According to specialists, the total number of drop-outs could rise to 10,000 per year.
"Baby F" is the 216th baby to join Door of Hope through this "hole in the wall". He is lucky, says Francinah, enjoying a rare moment of silence, while the seventeen toddlers of the house take a nap: "Many children are abandoned in the streets, on the side of the road, in parks or in toilets ". Like this infant dropped a few days earlier by the police, after being picked up in the street by a passer-by.