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An eight-year-old boy is at the centre of a tug of war between his biological mother and the daughter of a prominent struggle family.
So bitter has the war become that it went to the High Court in Pretoria this week. Two court orders were granted, which resulted in the child being handed to the struggle stalwart’s daughter, leaving the boy’s biological mother devastated.
City Press cannot name the individuals involved in this week’s court drama, to protect the child.
On Tuesday the court ordered the boy’s biological mother to immediately return him to his biological father and the stalwart’s daughter.
But an arrangement was made between the mother’s lawyer, advocate Eliot Buthane, and the couple’s attorney, Stephen Thompson, that the child would be handed over on Thursday at the office of the sheriff of the High Court in Polokwane.
Once there the child became emotional and allegedly said he did not want to leave his mother. After a tearful commotion with social workers, lawyers and the boy’s father, the biological mother refused to hand him over.
But the biological father and the stalwart’s daughter returned to court on Friday after launching an urgent application, asking it to order the mother to hand over the child immediately or face 30 days in jail. The child was handed over late on Friday afternoon.
The boy’s father and the stalwart’s daughter divorced in the late 1990s and no longer live together, but have maintained a friendship. She lives in Europe and the father lives in Soweto.
The child’s biological mother claims that in 2015 the boy’s father and the struggle stalwart duped her into signing documents after convincing her to allow the woman to take the child to live with her overseas and start his schooling there. She said they convinced her that he would have a chance at a better education than the one she could provide for him.
The child’s mother told City Press yesterday that she and his father began their tumultuous relationship nine years ago but broke up in early 2015.
“I was told by them and their lawyer at the time that the papers I was signing were so that the child could have residency in the country where the woman [worked] so that they could find him a school.
“I didn’t have a lawyer then, but trusted the woman as a mother-like figure to me. And I asked the lawyer whether I wasn’t signing away my child and was assured I was not. My son left that August.”
However, the woman said she was later shocked to discover that the documents she had signed gave the struggle stalwart primary guardianship of her child. She vehemently denies ever consciously signing over her rights as a parent.
“They started excluding me from his life. They didn’t even tell me which school he went to in that country. They also started saying that he didn’t want to see me. Yet every time we’d speak on the phone, we would tell each other how we couldn’t wait to see each other,” the 36-year-old woman said.
Earlier this year, the struggle stalwart’s daughter and the child returned to South Africa and his mother was allowed contact with him.
“When I met the woman I thought she was a good Samaritan as she came from a good family and she said she wanted to help and give my son an opportunity in life. I, too, was on the road a lot as an artist and because my parents and grandparents aren’t alive anymore, I had no one to look after him,” she said.
“If I had my mother, I would not have agreed that he could leave. I appreciate all they’ve done, but what they did to me this week and yesterday [Friday] feels like they wanted to rip out my womb,” she said, sobbing.
However, the struggle stalwart’s daughter and her former husband tell a different story.
Thompson said that the boy had been living with the older woman since he was six months old.
“My client has looked after him his whole life and has also paid for [his biological mother’s] eldest son to go to college. The process of formalising my client’s guardianship in 2015 so the child could live with her overseas was explained thoroughly to her,” he said.
“Earlier this year when they came back to the county, they notified [the biological mother] so she could make contact with the child. They landed on April 26 and immediately the stalwart’s daughter was hit with an application for the mother to have contact with the child. An order was made for the contact terms and that she return the child at a certain date, but she disappeared.
“I established that she went to Polokwane and that’s when we filed for the order that the child be returned.”
But the biological mother hit back, saying she enrolled her son at a school in Polokwane two months ago after realising that the boy could neither read nor write. For this reason he was enrolled in Grade 1 instead of Grade 2, with other children his age.
Thompson insists the child was “happy” to be back with his client, the stalwart’s daughter.
As a last-ditch effort to keep the child with his biological mother, Buthane sought the intervention of the family advocate on Friday so that an independent assessment of the child’s wishes could be conducted.
“The applicants would come back to the country and not inform my client and on March 30 this year, that’s when we decided to approach the court to get access to the child,” he said. “The child said to us that he didn’t want to go and live with the applicants or go overseas again. And from 2015 till today there’s no report done by a social worker representing the minor’s view. The boy can speak for himself.”
After her ordeal on Friday, the emotional mother said she may not see her boy again. “I signed those papers thinking they were for his residence. I regret it. I don’t hate them. I know he has bonded with the woman but I want my child back. This is like a nightmare I can’t wake up from. I’ve put it in God’s hands, but I want my child.”
