Research
report written for the Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation,
December 2001.
Kailash Bhana
is a former Researcher at the Centre for the Study of Violence and
Reconciliation.
Tessa Hochfeld
is based at the School of Social Work at the University
of the Witwatersrand (WITS).
We
thank the 14 children who agreed to be interviewed, and their five mothers who
supported this study from their prison cells. We greatly appreciate the support
and interpreting assistance of Collet Ngwane and Tshegofatso Leeuw, as well as
the guidance of Boitumelo Kekana in devising our interview schedule. Thanks too
to Lisa Vetten and Karen Hurt who helped edit this study.
Funding
for the research was provided by Ireland Aid through the Embassy of Ireland.
Davina Cohen raised the funds for the publication of the study. We thank both
Davina and Ireland Aid. The views expressed in this report do not purport to be
the views of the donors.
This
study shows that long-term imprisonment for a mother who has killed her abusive
partner is not in her children's best interests. To substantiate this we
explain and demonstrate the complex and serious consequences for children who
live in the context of domestic violence, whose fathers are killed by their
mothers, and who subsequently lose their mothers to long-term imprisonment. Our
study draws on the life experiences of 16 children whose mothers are serving
long prison sentences at Johannesburg Central Prison for killing their
partners.
These
children had already experienced ongoing trauma through witnessing domestic
violence against their mothers in their homes. The impact of this is
intricately linked to the abuse many of them also experienced at the hands of
their fathers. The effect of both witnessing and experiencing abuse is mediated
by many factors such as age, gender, and available support systems. But as our
literature review and interviews show, the severely negative impact on the
children's lives cannot be denied.
This
negative impact is gravely compounded by the life-shattering event of their
father's death, and their mothers' subsequent imprisonment. It heralds deep
emotional trauma and confusion for any child trying to make sense of a tragic
set of circumstances. Our findings are that the practical consequences are also
extreme. Children are suddenly thrust into completely new life circumstances.
Their familiar life-styles, homes, neighbourhoods, schools and friends are
lost.
The
children's level of care and emotional and physical support seems to depend on
whether they are cared for by their maternal or paternal relatives. Those
living with paternal relatives – their father's relatives – are much more
likely to experience neglect, or emotional or physical abuse than those living
with their mother's relatives.
The
children's relationship with their mothers is fraught with difficulties.
Particularly common is very poor, sometimes non-existent contact during her
imprisonment. Resistant family, financial constraints, and bureaucratic and
resistant institutions all block adequate access. Even if visits do take place,
the process is an extremely difficult and unpleasant one.
We
provide recommendations that relate to South Africa's policy and legal
framework which, if adopted, will help to improve the lives of children caught
in such complex and tragic circumstances.
Pule
– a police officer – started regularly assaulting Thembi's mother, Tshidi, when
Thembi1
was just four years old. He had already stopped Tshidi from working outside the
home, and discouraged her from visiting other people or having friends. Pule had
many extra-marital affairs which did not bother Tshidi at first. But when he
began bringing his mistresses home, using the spare bedroom, it did. Once she
came home to find Pule in bed with his mistress. Whenever confronted about it,
he assaulted her. Pule did not confine his abuse to his wife. Thembi and her
brothers received regular doses of physical and emotional abuse too.
The
children witnessed their father threatening to shoot their mother with his
service revolver. He once hit her so badly on her head and across her face with
the butt of his gun she needed stitches. She reported the violence to Pule's
station commander. He would talk to Pule and sometimes confiscate his service
pistol. Pule would then beg Tshidi to tell the station commander that he was
behaving and it was safe to return his pistol to him. Then the abusive
behaviour began all over again.
There
were times when Thembi's mother had to flee her home for safety, often taking
her children with her because they were also in danger. All the abuse and
humiliation left Thembi's mother emotionally disturbed. She was not always able
to be the mother that her children needed. She was treated with a range of
anti-depressants and other medications. Barely a teenager, Thembi was propelled
into adult responsibilities. She managed the entire household, including
cooking and cleaning, as well as doing her father's laundry and ironing when
her mother could not.
Thembi
felt powerless to help her mother when the beatings began. She and her brothers
would scream in distress, often bringing neighbours to their assistance. When
13, Thembi began having seizures that left her unconscious whenever she
witnessed the domestic abuse or experienced stress. She too received both
medical and traditional care. A doctor diagnosed her with epilepsy. The
beatings she received were also bad. Once Thembi's father assaulted her so
badly she was hospitalised, and missed her exams. Not surprisingly, her school
performance declined, causing her teachers' concern. At 15 years old, Thembi
was diagnosed with depression and somatisation. Her young and traumatic journey
through life was made harder because she did not have many friends.
When
Thembi was 16, her father's violence towards her mother got worse. He shot at
Tshidi, and began threatening to sell their home and send them all to his
parents in the rural area so that he could start a new life with another woman.
Thembi's mother was not willing to go. It would mean further financial hardship
and abuse. Pule's family had already assaulted Tshidi once. Tshidi's parents
said she and her children were her in-law's responsibility. She had nowhere to
go. Tshidi approached a man to help her kill her husband. Pule was shot that
weekend, and Tshidi was arrested later that week, and was not released from
prison again.
On
Tshidi's imprisonment, life for Thembi and her brothers fell apart further and
more deeply. Her paternal relatives took her brothers away to live in a rural
area. Thembi did not see them for three years, and when she did was distressed
at their deprived condition. Her paternal relatives blamed her for helping her
mother to murder her father, and refused to have anything to do with her. Her
maternal relatives did the same. Thembi, at sixteen years old and feeling
totally insecure, was left to fend for herself. Her paternal relatives took all
the family's belongings. She was left homeless, without a support system, and
separated from her siblings.
Since
her mother's imprisonment, Thembi has not had a fixed place to stay, living with
friends, acquaintances and her maternal uncle. Having no money to offer towards
her upkeep, she has had to keep moving on – in one three-year period since her
mother's imprisonment she had to change her living arrangements at least ten
times. Thembi was at the mercy of other people for accommodation and as a
result she was sexually abused by different people she lived with. These people
used Thembi's inability to pay for her lodging as an excuse to sexually abuse
her. Having no stable home severely disrupted her schooling. On top of that her
peers teased her because she had no place to stay, and was an 'orphan' whose
mother had killed her father.
Her
paternal relatives squandered the maintenance due to her from her father's
estate. When Thembi was older and enquired about the money, they threatened to
kill her. She had to leave school, as she could not afford all its costs.
Feeling cheated in life, Thembi talks bitterly about how deprived and envious
she felt of other girls her age.
Like
Tshidi, Thembi became a teenage mother. Now 21 years old, she lives with the
stresses of being young, single, unemployed and without support of any kind.
Her baby's father has absconded. Thembi worries about her brothers. She misses
her mother and wishes Tshidi could be released so they could be a family again,
no matter how difficult it would be. Visits to the prison don't come often, and
are hard. They cost money, and despite the happiness of seeing her mother,
leave Thembi very depressed.
Living
with deep insecurity and deprivation in all facets of her life, Thembi is
severely depressed, has poor self-esteem and thinks of ways to commit suicide.
She has tried twice, once by hanging and the other time by overdosing on pills.
I
haven't seen my father for a long time. [My sister] says he is dead but when I
ask her why or how he died, she cries and won't tell me. (Boy, age 13)
My
father was horrible to my mother. He didn't treat her like a wife. That's why I
always say: Who killed who first? (Girl, age 16)
What
is the fate of children whose violent and abusive fathers die at the hands of
their mother who is subsequently imprisoned for a long time? How can we
quantify their loss, their grief and their trauma? Who takes care of them? Moreover,
how can we ensure them every opportunity to be heard and to heal?
In
South Africa, as in other countries, children are affected by spousal killing
mainly because of their father killing their mother. It is much rarer that
women kill their spouses. This is usually preceded by the woman enduring severe
abuse at the hands of their male partners (Dobash and Dobash, 1998; Donziger,
1996; Hendriks et al, 1993; Robertson and Donaldson,
1997). A study of sentencing and conviction patterns in three Gauteng
courts found that the ratio of men killing their female partners, as opposed to
the other way around, was 4:1 (Vetten and Ngwane, in progress). In both
scenarios, a history of domestic violence preceded the killings (Vetten and
Ngwane, in progress). Abused women who kill their partners are very unlikely to
be generally violent or dangerous (Hendriks et al, 1993). Inevitably, children
are left behind when one parent is killed and another is imprisoned for the
act. Almost always, these children have either witnessed the violence, been
abused themselves by the father or both. This study thus argues that
imprisoning the mother is not in her children's best interests, or in society's
in the long-term.
The
earliest reference to child victims of spousal murder in South African writing
seems to be in the mid-1990s (Robertson and Donaldson, 1997). Policy and
services offer scant provision for the life-shattering effect of spousal murder
on children, which is what this study begins to try to change.
This
study is the product of ongoing work by the Gender Unit at the Centre for the
Study of Violence and Reconciliation with women imprisoned at Johannesburg
Central Prison for killing their abusive partners.2 The impact
of their imprisonment clearly extends far beyond their own lives, and
particularly to their children's. This study is a preliminary investigation
into the impact on children of both witnessing and experiencing domestic
violence. It describes the impact of forced separation of mother and child as a
result of long-term imprisonment. The impact of the following are impossible to
untangle, and are intricately related:
·
the
impact of witnessing domestic violence;
·
the
child's own experience of abuse;
·
the
violent death of the father;
·
the
effect of their mothers' imprisonment.
The
mother is usually the child's primary caregiver. Her imprisonment exacerbates
already difficult circumstances in the child's life. The cumulative effect is
deeply damaging and long-term./p>
This
report refers to 16 children of five different mothers who are serving prison
sentences for killing their abusive partners. Fourteen children were
interviewed. One child refused an interview and one child could not be traced,
but information on both was acquired from family members. The sample included
children from White, African, and Indian race groups. They belong to different
language, ethnic, and religious categories, and they live in rural and urban
areas of four of South Africa's provinces.
Each
child was interviewed alone by one of the researchers, both of whom are
registered social workers. Current caregivers and the children themselves gave
permission. An interpreter was used where necessary. The interviews took place
between November 2000 and February 2001 in the child's current home. Only in
the case of one family were interviews held in an office setting.
We
used a semi-structured interview schedule. However, the information we gathered
was of a qualitative nature, and so little statistical analysis can be made.
The children were asked open-ended questions about their current lives, their
lives before their mother's imprisonment, and how they understood the
circumstances that led to the separation. Interviews were verbal, although some
techniques involving drawing were used with the younger children. We also held
interviews with the children's mothers, relevant caregivers, relatives,
neighbours, acquaintances, and other professionals. All the interviews were
tape-recorded and transcribed to ensure accuracy.
We
offered each child further counselling and assistance after the interview. In one
case the family was referred to the local child protection agency because of
concerns about the children's long-term safety.
Our
study's most obvious limitation is that its sample is small and not random, and
so generalisations cannot be made. However, this is the first study of its kind
in South Africa that we are aware of and thus themes that have been drawn from
the findings may have broader implications than would otherwise be the case.
This is mainly because we know so little about this issue.
Children
who lose their mother to long-term imprisonment for her killing an abusive
partner live in a complex web of circumstances. This section attempts to
explain this from the children's perspective.
Domestic
violence is generally understood to mean a man's abusive behaviour towards his
intimate partner. It can include one or more of the following: physical abuse,
sexual abuse, emotional, verbal and psychological abuse, economic abuse,
intimidation and threats, harassment, stalking, damaging of property, entry
into the residence of the woman without consent, or any other controlling or
abusive behaviour towards the woman where such conduct harms, or may cause
imminent harm to her safety or well-being (Domestic Violence Act, 1998).
The
rate of domestic violence in South Africa is difficult to accurately establish,
mainly because we do not have reliable methods of capturing this data. Because
our law does not define domestic violence as a crime in itself, there are no
police records on its incidence. However, the following estimates and studies
give an indication of its extent:
·
a
study conducted in three provinces found that over 50% of women in the Eastern
Cape and Mpumalanga, and nearly 40% in the Northern Province had been
emotionally and financially abused in the previous year. Over 26% of women in
the Eastern Cape and Mpumalanga, and over 19% in the Northern Province had been
physically abused in their lifetimes by an intimate partner (Jewkes et al,
1999, in Vetten and Bhana,
2001:3).
·
at
least one woman in Gauteng is killed by her male partner every six days (Vetten, 1995). This,
called intimate femicide, is the ultimate form of domestic violence.
·
nearly
45% of approximately 1 400 male Cape Town municipal workers interviewed
admitted to abusing their female partners (Abrahams et al, 1999, in Vetten and Bhana, 2001:3).
·
rape
in marriage has only recently been widely acknowledged as a problem, even though
2% of women interviewed in a Western Cape study admitted they had experienced
marital rape. And a further 12% stated their partners had sexually assaulted
them (Maconachie et al, 1994, in Vetten and Bhana, 2001:4).
Similarly,
child abuse seems to be occurring at extremely distressing rates in South
Africa. Child abuse can include emotional, physical, sexual, financial abuse
and neglect.
There
is no criminal category of 'child abuse' in South Africa. The South African
Police's crime information services provide the following national statistics
on violence against children between January and June 2001:
·
1 267
cases of reported cases of cruelty and ill-treatment of children. This number excludes
sexual abuse, assault and murder.
·
236
cases of reported child rape. This number includes sexual intercourse with
mentally disabled adult women who are unable to appreciate the nature of a
sexual act;
·
2 411
cases of kidnapping.
Cases
of assault of children are recorded under the general categories of assault and
are difficult to disaggregate from crimes against adults. Even with these
frightening numbers of child abuse cases, it is very likely that the real
figures are higher. The abuse that children experience in a home where their
mother is being abused may rarely be reported to police. The statistics
certainly do not reflect the child's witnessing of violence in the home.
The
interrelationship between wife abuse and child abuse is fairly unexplored,
particularly in South Africa. The literature seems to indicate that the
connections are much more significant than previously thought. But these links
have remained hidden for far too long. This is because of the sectoral nature
of our social services, and the fact that activists, policies, and treatment
programmes for women and children have tended to focus on the victim rather
than develop a holistic picture of the perpetrator (Schechter and Edleson,
1994). We need to conceptualise the relationship between domestic violence and
child abuse by understanding that power and control underscore all violence in
families in one way or another.
Child
abuse can be seen as an extension of overall ongoing violence in the home.
Literature shows convincingly that there is a strong association between child
abuse and wife abuse. It is also consistent in showing that the child abuser is
far more likely to be the father than the mother (Jafee et al, 1990; Schechter
and Edleson, 1994; Stark and Flitcraft, 1996; Peled, 1996; Kelly, 1997; Dobash
and Dobash, 1998; Park and Khan, 2000). Statistics from the USA and the UK show
that the links between child and wife abuse are powerful. One extensive study
in the USA showed that "50% of the men who frequently assaulted their wives
also frequently abused their children" (Straus and Gelles, 1990, in
Schechter and Edleson, 1994:3).
The
two abuses are not entirely separate issues that may frequently co-exist.
Indeed, one act can often be intended to elicit both outcomes (Kelly, 1997).
For example, a man may intend his children to witness him battering their
mother as a method of control over the whole household. Or he may threaten to
or actually harm the children to control and abuse his wife. Witnessing
domestic violence can be described as a form of emotional abuse of children
(Kelly, 1997).
We
don't have a systematic study of this link in South Africa. But taking into
account the experiences in other parts of the world, and considering the
epidemic proportions of both child abuse and domestic violence here, this
correlation undoubtedly exists in South Africa (Park and Khan, 2000). The
impact of child abuse can be devastating in the extreme, and not only in the
particularly serious cases of physical and sexual abuse. Recognising the damage
caused to children who witness their fathers regularly abuse their mothers is
important in understanding the connections between wife and child abuse. This
is a complex issue with many components, discussed in more detail below.
There
is still a very common assumption that the troubles of childhood [will] pass,
that children are resilient, that they forget. The truth is that children's
lives are continuous. The scars of early childhood do enormous emotional damage
in the present to the child (Hendriks et al, 1993:172).
A
person who experiences or witnesses an event/s where there is actual or
threatened death, serious injury, or a threat to the physical integrity of
one's self or others, is considered to be exposed to trauma. The person's
response involves intense fear, helplessness or horror. Children express this
in their emotional state and their behaviour (DSM-IV, 1994).
Writers
have distinguished between the impact that a single event or simple trauma, and
multiple-event or complex trauma, has on survivors (Johnson, 1998; Groves et
al., 1996, Robertson and
Donaldson, 1997; Wilson, 1997; Terr 1991; Herman, 1992; Hendriks et al.,
1993; Pynoos and Eth, 1986). These writers agree that complex trauma, commonly
understood to include experiences such as war or repeated natural disasters,
has long-term consequences that are detrimental to a child's developing
personality and character, psychological functioning, and behaviour.
Experiencing
domestic violence is a form of complex trauma. There are usually repeated
cycles of violence and the women tend to leave and return to the abusive
partner with their children in tow. This has a detrimental effect on the
women's and the children's mental health and personality. Children who grow up
in homes where their mother is being abused are usually exposed to multiple
rather than single events of trauma. Not only may the children be in danger of
being abused themselves, but witnessing their mother being repeatedly abused by
their father over a period of time exposes them to ongoing complex trauma
(Sternberg et al, 1993). Children endure the direct experience of and
exposure to violence. And they also have to cope with factors such as the
separation of parents, having to flee the home for fear of violence, frequent
moves, and the involvement of others in their family's life, such as the
police, welfare workers, and extended family.
What
does being a witness to violence mean in the context of children living in
violent homes? It means children:
·
overhear
violent incidents;
·
directly
witness their mother being emotionally, physically, and less frequently,
sexually abused;
·
are
exposed to the results of the violence, such as seeing their mother's injuries;
·
are
used as a tool in the father's abuse of the mother, such as being encouraged or
forced to take part in emotionally degrading her, or their behaviour being used
in some way as the excuse for a battering incident;
·
try to
intervene during a violent incident to protect their mother(Elbow, 1982; Jaffe
et al, 1990; Padayachee, 1994; O'Keefe, 1994; Kelly, 1997; Park & Khan,
2000).
Because
these events occur repetitively, the child does not have adequate time and
space, or conducive conditions, to recover from the trauma of witnessing and/or
experiencing violence. These abusive events become imprinted on the child's
memory in ways that ordinary events are not. A child may struggle to cope with
the thoughts, feelings and visual images of the abuse long after the actual
event is over.
We
need rigorous studies to investigate the effects of domestic violence on
children, as this is not an area we know enough about (Kelly, 1997; Padayachee,
1994).
Attachment
theorists such as John Bowlby say that growing up in a safe and secure home
environment with a strong, positive parent-child attachment is a key factor in
a child's normal and healthy emotional development. In particular, parental
relationships early on in the child's life must be characterised by
consistency, nurturing, safety and trust. This helps the child to learn to
develop close and healthy relationships in the future. Witnessing family
violence and having to cope with its effects on the family (living in an
unpredictable, violent and dangerous environment, and having a mother who is
often emotionally unavailable) has grave implications for a child's ability to
develop healthy, trusting relationships in the future (McKay and Adlam, 2001).
It
is widely accepted in psychological theory that children's development goes
through phases. In each phase they have to develop in core areas for them to
move easily and healthily onto more mature developmental tasks. This is
illustrated in the following table.
Life
Stage |
Task
to resolve |
Problems
likely if task remains unresolved |
Infancy |
Trust vs.
mistrust |
Hopelessness,
dependency, anxiety, withdrawal, mistrust in relationships |
Play age |
Autonomy
vs. shame and doubt |
Overcontrol,
impulsiveness, problems with order and structure, helplessness |
Younger
schoool age |
Initiative
vs. shame |
Guilt,
loss of security, need for protectors, loss of purpose |
Older
school age |
Industry
vs. inferiority |
Sense of
futility, work paralysis, incompetence |
Adolescence |
Identity
vs. identity confusion |
Self-consciousness,
lack of commitment to relationships and life goals. Lack of a core identity. |
Adapted from Johnson,1998:78
Repeated
trauma in childhood forms and deforms an emerging personality (Herman, 1992).
The child trapped in an abusive environment has to find ways of adapting to an
unpredictable situation, where trust and safety is repeatedly violated. This
results in a pervasive feeling of being unsafe and powerless. Repeated trauma
can manifest in a number of ways, and depends on the child's age and
developmental stage. Most children who experience domestic violence display
symptoms of post-traumatic stress (PTS). This could include an inability to
concentrate, hyper-vigilance, irritability or tearfulness (Wilson, 1997). Some
children develop post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). This is when the
symptoms of trauma persist and seriously impair a child's daily functioning.
Children
who experience trauma may initially be in a state of shock, numbness,
detachment, and may withdraw. Adults may take these symptoms to mean that
children have not been badly affected. Children who are numb, and thus do what
they are told, are much easier to cope with than children who are aggressive or
weepy when violence or death affects a family. Adults, who themselves are
struggling to cope with violence or death of a loved one, may tacitly encourage
the former (Johnson, 1998; Hendriks et al., 1993).
Healthy
development is difficult, or impossible, in an insecure, unpredictable or
disrupted environment. The trauma is likely to disrupt a different
developmental task depending on the age or development phase that children are
in. Of course, some children who have had years of witnessing violence may miss
out on many opportunities for resolving a number of different developmental
stages. Their emotional maturity and ability to form and keep relationships is
negatively affected.
If
a child is in early childhood (3-5 years) or adolescence she or he may be
particularly vulnerable to the effects of trauma. In these developmental stages
the child negotiates independence from parents, and develops an identity
distinct from his or her parent (Robertson and Donaldson,
1997). Trauma may delay or interrupt these normal developmental processes.
It can be permanently detrimental (Johnson, 1998).
Children
who witness domestic violence are more likely to develop chronic physical,
social/behavioural, and emotional/psychological problems (Padayachee, 1989;
Terr 1991, Groves et al., 1996; Schecter and Edleson, 1994, O' Keefe, 1994,
Pynoos and Eth, 1986; Johnson, 1998).
Physical impact
A fairly common way children express their distress in violent households is
through somatic complaints. Younger children who cannot express their feelings
verbally are particularly prone to getting otherwise unexplained stomach aches,
headaches and asthma (Park & Khan, 2000). This comes from post trauma
adjustment resulting in a physical display of psychological distress. Children
commonly regress to earlier levels of functioning as a way of mastering a
difficult situation, and finding a comfort zone (Johnson, 1998). Such
regression commonly includes bedwetting and thumb sucking.
To
cope with a constantly threatening environment, or as a way of keeping
attachments with their parents, children may develop psychological defence
mechanisms such as dissociation. Dissociation is a defensive disruption in the
normally-occurring connections amongst feelings, thoughts, behaviours, and
memories. It can take physical forms, such as epileptic seizures whenever the
child feels in danger or frightened. Dissociation can also take the form of
amnesia, becoming unresponsive to external events (detachment) or perceiving
events happening as an observer (observation) instead of an active participant
(Briere, 1992).
Behavioural impact
Children growing up in violent homes exhibit more behavioural problems than do
other children. Such problems include hyper-activity, aggression,
rebelliousness and delinquency (Hendriks et al, 1993). Many authors say
that these children learn aggressive behaviour as it is the only method of
conflict resolution or communication they see in their homes. They learn that
violence is a means to control situations, maintain power, and that it
invariably works. Not only is this detrimental to the individual, it also has
"potentially serious criminal implications for their future as adults and
their prospective families … [and] … may be the training ground for violence in
society" (Pretorius, 1991:115; Gelles and Conte, 1990).
This
is particularly related to children developing their gender identities. Boys
tend to model aggressive or violent behaviour from their fathers more readily
than girls. Girls tend rather to learn to be submissive, compliant, withdrawn
or anxious by modelling their mother's role in the family. Boys and girls may
well experience the same degree of distress, but this is mediated by socially
accepted gender roles and is thus expressed differently (Hendriks et al,
1993). These children have a deficit in problem-solving skills: they learn to
respond to stressful situations and resolve conflict in a stylised way. They
are either passive (where the impact of violence is internalised) or aggressive
(where the impact of violence is externalised) (O'Keefe, 1994; Jaffe et al,
1990). However, exceptions to this have been found. Thus gender stereotyping in
responses to domestic violence cannot be considered inevitable (Kelly, 1997).
Acting
out behaviour is a common expression of distress caused by trauma, particularly
in the adolescent years (Johnson, 1998). This may ultimately be
self-destructive. It could include substance abuse, premature sexual activity,
delinquency, suicidal expressions and attempts, and running away from home.
Role
reversal is a common behavioural effect of witnessing violence in the home,
especially among older girls (Elbow, 1982; Johnson, 1998). The oldest female
child often takes over basic family care functions in a chaotic family
environment where the mother is emotionally unavailable to parent, and often in
need of care herself, such as when she is physically injured after a violent
incident. The care ranges from 'babysitting' younger siblings to running the
household. Girls from as young as eight years old can end up in role reversal.
It is inappropriate for a young girl to have to do this because it requires
skills and resources she could not possibly yet possess. She has to give up her
childhood. Since her role is premature, it also has detrimental effects on
those she is caring for, as their needs are probably not adequately met.
Adolescents
who take on adult responsibilities too soon often are reluctant to come to
terms with past experiences. They attempt to flee them by becoming autonomous
(Johnson, 1998). They develop lifestyles years in advance of their age and may
enter into early marriage and parenthood when circumstances clearly dictate
otherwise. Such teens expect a joyless existence, given past experience. Their
life choices often confirm their expectations.
Behaviour
problems, particularly aggression, are likely to have negative effects on
children's social adjustment and their ability to make and keep friends. This
is exacerbated by repeated moves in some families, disrupting children's social
development.
It
is widely accepted that witnessing violence in the home has a negative impact
on schooling. This correlation is particularly strong when combined with
neglect or abuse of the child (Eckenrode et al, 1993). Witnessing domestic
violence can also possibly cause poor academic performance, poor concentration
in class, withdrawn or aggressive behaviour in the school environment, and
insecure social relationships.
Emotional/Psychological impact
Children who live in a home situation of constant 'surveillance' and
hyper-arousal – so as never to be caught out by a violent incident at home –
live under continuously stressful circumstances (Herman, 1992). They have to
cope with constant anxiety, and can find playing or truly relaxing impossible.
Girls in particular seem to respond with increased levels of childhood anxiety
and clinging behaviour (Jaffe et al, 1990), whereas boys are socialised
to not show fear, anxiety or nervousness. Healthy gender identification is very
difficult when the choice is between the violence of the abuser and the
helplessness of the victim (Elbow, 1982). This constant anxiety and
hyper-arousal can also contribute to an acute sense of powerlessness,
especially in children's own lives and circumstances (Padayachee, 1994).
Guilt
and self-blame is particularly common among younger children who witness
violence in the home (Padayachee, 1994; Wilson, 1997). Children under eight
years old understand what goes on around them in relation to themselves (Specht
and Craig, 1987). They therefore tend to be unable to separate themselves from
the causes of their father's anger and their mother's experience of violence.
This sense of guilt is a huge burden for young children to bear. It often goes
unresolved as responsibility and blame becomes confused in violent households.
Witnessing
violence increases the risks of children experiencing depression. Children who
are also being abused themselves are significantly more likely to be depressed
and suicidal (Sternberg et al, 1993).
Further,
shame is an enormous issue for children in violent homes. They fear the stigma
associated with family conflict and violence. This is particularly strong in
South Africa where, despite the high prevalence of families experiencing some
kind of problem, a happy harmonious home is seen as the 'norm'. Any deviation
from this is seen to be shameful (Pretorius, 1991; Padayachee, 1994).
Some
children, especially older ones, are constantly angry at being caught in the
situation, and have poor relationships with everyone in their families. They
often experience intense ambivalence about their parents. And they can often
have a longing to remove themselves completely from the family environment.
Younger children, on the other hand, often harbour a fantasy being able to
'mend' the family tensions and stop the violence. Feelings of rage and
murderous revenge fantasies are common responses to abusive treatment.
Sadly,
some children from violent households seem to find difficulty in being empathic
towards others and lack interpersonal sensitivity (Jaffe et al, 1990;
Padayachee, 1994; Hendriks et al, 1993). This could be because they learn that
they have to always be on guard, and to protect themselves from emotional hurt.
These children do not have the opportunity to be emotionally open and to share
feelings with others. Some children therefore develop an indifference towards
others, and an emotional hardness that lasts as a character trait into
adulthood.
Children
coming from violent homes experience emotional damage and stress. But there are
also cognitive implications of witnessing violence. Jaffe et al (1990) mention
that one of the more 'subtle symptoms' of witnessing violence is the kind of
attitudes children begin to hold about responsibility and blame for that
violence. Their research indicates that children who are exposed to repeated
reinforcement of men being in control and women being blamed for the violence –
without any significant environmental factor to negate this process – can grow
up unable to hold their fathers (and other men) accountable for their actions.
They blame their mothers (and other women) for bringing violence upon
themselves (Elbow, 1982). This is a cause for great concern regarding how these
particular children negotiate their own childhood and eventually their adult
relationships. And it is among these children that there is a risk (but not a
certainty) of repeated abusive patterns (Gelles and Conte, 1990).3
Many
children develop resilience in the face of repeated trauma, and learn to cope
with the effects. However, this is mostly due to the loving and affectionate
links they develop with a primary caregiver, often the mother. For many
survivors of trauma the quality and reliability of a primary relationship will
be crucial to their future well-being and adjustment (Hendriks et al., 1993;
Jaffe, 1990). But many children do not have this type of relationship if their
primary caregivers, their mothers are forcibly separated from them on arrest
and imprisonment. The children are left in the care of extended family who
become parents by default, often unprepared for this huge responsibility.
There
is extensive evidence from the literature and from practitioners' accounts that
children living with family violence receive less than perfect parenting
(Kelly, 1994; Elbow, 1982; Dobash & Dobash, 1998; Park and Khan, 2000).
Even if they are not being physically or sexually abused by the father figure,
he is seldom an adequate parent because he needs to be completely in control of
the family functioning. He commonly uses children as a tool to abuse their mother
(Kelly, 1994; Park and Khan, 2000). This is immeasurably emotionally damaging
for them. Even in non-violent households men usually leave the day to day
parenting of children to mothers. In an abusive situation it has been shown to
be very unlikely that fathers are involved and positively emotionally engaging
parents (Elbow, 1982). In many cases, the father or father figure chooses to
have very little to do with the children in the home. Clearly if he is also
actively abusing the children his parenting is not so much ineffective, as
exceptionally damaging (Kelly, 1994; Peled, 1996; Dobash and Dobash, 1998).
In
most cases the mother is the children's primary caregiver. However, women in
abusive relationships use enormous amounts of energy on staying safe and
avoiding abuse. They have overwhelming emotional needs as a result of their
abuse (Jaffe et al, 1990; Elbow, 1982). Consequently, they often have little
energy and emotional resources left to give their children. The quality of
their parenting inevitably suffers (Elbow, 1982; Padayachee, 1994; Kelly,
1997). Many have lost confidence in their own ability to parent adequately
because of a lack of self-esteem and their own emotional problems stemming from
sometimes years of victimisation (Park & Khan, 2000). Women may actively
try to protect their children from abuse or knowledge of their experience of
violence. But they face contradictory consequences when they discover that this
just engenders an unhealthy culture of silence, which is emotionally damaging for
the children in the long-term (Kelly, 1997). A complex relationship between
abused women and their children results, which can be both caring and
conflictual at once. This does not necessarily mean that these mothers are
'unfit' to care for their children. It means they often need assistance with
healing their own wounds while at the same time offering adequate emotional
care to their children (Park & Khan, 2000). It certainly means that it may
be very difficult to achieve an uncomplicated close relationship with their
children.
In
some cases abused women may be violent towards their children. Some connections
have been made between a women's experience of severe abuse and abusing her
children as a means of displacing frustration or revenge (Padayachee, 1994;
Stark and Flitcraft, 1996; Peled, 1996; Park & Khan, 2000). But the
literature does not excuse this behaviour. It recommends that children be
protected from their mother's abuse (for example, see Park & Khan, 2000).
However, it is important to note that no deterministic links have been made
between women experiencing abuse and her abuse of her own children. The fact
that she is being abused does not necessarily make her an unfit, poor or
abusive mother. Rather, a myriad of complex factors will influence her ability
to parent adequately. Abused women who abuse their own children are in a small
minority (Peled, 1996; Stark & Flitcraft, 1996).
Most
literature on children and how they cope with the violent death of a parent
assumes the safety of the child within the home. It also assumes that the
killing took place outside of the family system. This literature may capture
the grief and loss these children go through. But it does not capture the ambivalence,
relief, fear, confusion, and deep anger that occur when one parent has been
killed by another in the context of domestic violence. The literature around
domestic violence concentrates on intimate femicide – where the man kills his
woman partner – as the ultimate form of domestic violence. It recognises the
immense trauma of this experience for children, especially when the child
witnesses the murder. The discussion tends to revolve around childcare concerns
where a violent father is the sole custodian of very vulnerable children.
However,
there is almost nothing written about abused women who kill their husbands, and
even less on the emotional responses that children may have to this. "The
reality is that the lives of these children are literally shattered by their
experiences" (Robertson
and Donaldson, 1997:2).
There
definitely is a different context – and thus a different impact – on children
depending on whether it is their abused mother or abusive father who killed the
other parent. If children are abused, the evidence shows that in all likelihood
the father is the abuser. Further, their primary caregiver is invariably their
mother, especially when their father is living separate from the family at the
time of the killing. Their mother's death, in the case of intimate femicide,
would mean that they are left in the sole care of a man who is possibly
responsible for their own abuse. And they would have lost, through their mother's
death, their primary attachment and source of care. "The loss of a mother
is much more significant and may be more immediately traumatic than the loss of
a father" (Hendriks et al, 1993:100).
The
implication of this is that children are much better off being left in the care
of mothers who kill than fathers who kill.4 But there
are obviously serious consequences for those children who are subsequently
separated from their mothers through long prison sentences. "By
imprisoning [the mothers], we punish not only the killer, but the innocent
children who lose both parents suddenly, traumatically, and simultaneously. The
children's fate is dire." (Ibid. 1993:100).
One
of the issues most tinged with anguish is the divided loyalty that children in
this situation feel (Robertson
and Donaldson, 1997; Peled, 1996). A child most commonly loves both
parents, despite their possible abusive behaviour. Although they may be
relieved not to have to live in a constant state of fear due to the father's
potential for violence, losing him in a violent way triggers deep loss, regret
and grief, and often guilt for feeling relief. The child may experience
disbelief at the mother's actions and struggle to reconcile the act with the
mother they love and trust. Making sense of these confusing feelings requires
extensive emotional work, a luxury that is often unaffordable when children
lose both parents and have to negotiate a completely new life. Living with the
stigma of having their mother labelled as a murderer means these children's
social and community supports are often minimal (Robertson and Donaldson,
1997).
To
cope with these losses children need to understand the reality of the death.
They need factual information appropriate to their age and level of
understanding. Often caregivers explicitly forbid or discourage discussion
about the death of the father and the whereabouts of the mother. Children may
be prevented from attending the father's funeral, and not told why the mother
is not with them. They may interpret this as maternal abandonment, or begin to
believe that the mother is an evil person. This behaviour by caregivers – whether
intended to protect the child or not – is counterproductive to the child being
able to resolve his or her trauma.
The
practical impact on children of the killing of one parent and the loss of
another to imprisonment is profound. Their everyday lives have been irrevocably
altered, and they lose most of what is familiar and comforting. The kind of
care the children receive either helps or hinders their healing.
In
South Africa, there is a total of 3 7865 adult women
in prison (Department of Correctional Services, 2001). There is no indication
of how many dependent children these women are responsible for.
A
mother's imprisonment has more far-reaching consequences on children than a
father's (Woodrow, 1996; Shaw, 1996; Donziger, 1996; Hendriks, 1993). Despite
this, the effects on children of a mother's imprisonment have not been given as
much consideration as when a father has been imprisoned.
A
study on the impact on children of their mother's imprisonment was conducted by
the Howard League for Penal Reform6 in 1993. The
mothers were all imprisoned for less than two years. The study found that
children's lives were affected by the loss of their primary caregiver in a
multitude of ways. The most significant was that children immediately
experienced a change in caregiver, neighbourhood as well as separation from
siblings. This affected them both emotionally and behaviourally.
The
children were asked about how their behaviour had changed after the
imprisonment of their mothers. They reported changes that included abusing
drugs, feeling depressed, feeling a sense of aloneness with no-one to speak to
about their problems, playing truant from school, and having to take on adult
responsibilities. The Howard League emphasises that although the impact of the
separation changes with time, the hardship and damage to the children generally
gets worse.
There
are only eight prisons for female prisoners in South Africa (Department of
Correctional Services, 2001). This means mothers may be imprisoned a distance
away from where their children live, making the costs of visiting prohibitive.
Often the visiting time is too short for quality time with the mother, and the
visiting environment is child-unfriendly, hampering meaningful contact – and
vital relationship maintenance – between mother and child.
Children
also experience a range of emotions both before and after visiting their
mothers (Woodrow, 1996). Children who take time off from school have to explain
their absence to peers. Visits are also often traumatic for children who do not
see their mothers often, and then do not want to leave them.
Visits
mean long waits at the prison in child-unfriendly conditions. In South African
prisons, the quality of the visit depends on which group an inmate belongs to.
This is based on the prisoner's conduct in prison.7 Each year
A-group visitors are allowed 45 contact visits, each 45 minutes long. B- and
C-group visitors are allowed 36 non-contact visits a year, each 30 minutes
long. The Head of the Prison can lengthen visits or allow contact visits for
humanitarian reasons.
In
South Africa the Department of Correctional Services considers to some degree
the impact of maternal deprivation on very young children and infants.
Officially, women with young children may be permitted to have a child with
them until the child is five years old, within a mother and child unit where
possible (Dissel and Du Plessis, 2000). But the Department of Correctional
Services actually only allows a child to remain with the mother up to age two
(Department of Correctional Services submission to the Parliamentary Committee
on the Status and Quality of Life of Women, 2001).
In
2001 there were 224 children with their mothers in prison in mother and baby
units in eight provinces (Department of Correctional Services, 2001).
Johannesburg Central Prison has pioneered the 'Babies Behind Bars' project.
This focuses on providing children in prison with their mothers' optimal
conditions for their normal development. Unfortunately, this understanding of
the effect of a mother's imprisonment on children has not been extended to the
children who are left on the outside.
When
men are imprisoned, their children's primary caregiver generally continues to
take care of them (Woodrow, 1996; Hendriks, 1993; NACRO, 1994; Howard League,
1991). In South Africa, this is usually the mother, but can be a grandmother.
When women are imprisoned their children experience a change in primary
caregiver, home environment, and may in fact become parentless. Even when the
biological father is alive they rarely take care of the children (Woodrow,
1996; NACRO, 1994). These dramatic changes include a change in school, loss of
friends, separation from siblings, and a loss of family relationships. Children
are isolated from their support networks. Notions of stability and security are
taken from them at a time when they need it the most.
When
mothers are imprisoned children often go into the care of the extended family –
often maternal grandmothers and aunts (Woodrow, 1996; NACRO, 1994, Howard
League, 1991). Children have "on average four or five different carers
before their mother is released, with homelessness, poverty, unemployment and
stigma, and if she has been away for a substantial time she may be unsuccessful
… [in getting] the children back" (Hendriks et al, 1993:100). New
caregivers are thrust into the role by default, when they least expect it, and
when they have few resources to cope with the task. Caregivers are usually
elderly grandparents or single parents who themselves face difficulties
including ill health, financial constraints, and fitting children into their
own schedules. Woodrow (1996) and Hendriks (1993) highlight that substitute
caregivers often have to deal with the negative emotional and social problems
that children have because of their separation from the mother. Caregivers may
not understand the children's reactions, nor do they have the skills for
dealing with traumatised children.
Family
alliances are important when looking at the quality of care or placement for
the children (Hendriks et al, 1993). Strong loyalties emerge within the
extended families after these tragic events. Conflict between kin is common and
affects the care children receive. How close the children and the eventual
caregivers were before the killing can indicate the quality of care they can
expect to receive. It will also influence the children's capacity to cope with
their trauma after the effective loss of both parents (Hendriks et al, 1993).
The carer's own response to the violent death of the father is going to
influence the way they respond to the children.
Paternal
family relatives caring for the children have to go through their own grieving,
and resolve their ambivalence or anger about their son/brother/relative's
death. The man's children symbolise the grief. They also represent the source
of the grief (the mother). It is impossible under these circumstances for the
carer families not to feel at least some ambivalence. Hendriks et al (1993)
identify a common pattern in their work on families who say they will protect
the children yet at the same time emotionally reject them. The children never
feel they belong and are not completely accepted into their new home.
Sometimes
this rejection is obvious. Relatives can feed the children a "diet of
hatred" (Hendriks et al, 1993:97) about one of the parents. This
can happen whether the paternal or maternal relatives care for them. With
paternal relatives, rage is vented against the children's mother who killed
their son/brother/relative. The maternal relatives speak extremely negatively
of the children's abusive father. This makes it hard for the children to
resolve their own profound ambivalent feelings about both parents. It is
unrealistic to expect children, whose livelihoods now depend entirely on their
relatives, to be able to construct a rounded picture of their dead or
imprisoned parent so they can resolve their own deeply confused identity.
Children
need to be able to recall balanced and rounded memories of their dead parent
and their imprisoned parent. This makes it possible for them to grieve fully.
But this is "often denied them by protective adults who 'do not wish to
remind them of their loss'" (Hendriks et al, 1993:38). This is strongly
linked to what children were told about the events. Hendriks et al (1993) have
found that few children are given clear information on what happened to either
of their parents. Many children are never told the fate of their fathers or
mothers. Even fewer are given an opportunity to grieve and mourn. Often
relatives do not know how to tell the children what happened, or they feel it
is better for the children not to know. The extended family most often does not
recognise how severe the trauma is for children. Nor do they have any idea of
the short and long-term impact this will have on the child (Robertson and Donaldson,
1997). The children may then display compensatory behaviour to make up for
their loss and unwanted changes. This may be an attempt to reverse and deny the
traumatic event and may take the form of fantasy in play. Common themes of such
behaviour include undoing the damage and acting as if nothing has changed.
Woodrow
(1996) highlights that the eldest children bear a greater burden of a mother's
imprisonment as often they take on the role of the mother in looking after
younger siblings. They are also more likely to know the truth about their
mother's absence. But they have to keep up the pretence for younger children
who are told untruths about it.
The
profound effect of placement on children whose fathers have been killed, and
their mothers imprisoned, is largely unrecognised. Where they are placed
influences their opportunity for and assistance with healing. It also
influences how their emotional and nurturing needs are dealt with, and whether
they get the chance – and encouragement – to maintain a positive relationship
with their mother in prison. Their placement dictates the quality of their
everyday care.
The
decision about the children's placement is usually made on an ad hoc basis.
Some placements are temporary arrangements that drag on for years. According to
Hendriks et al, (1993), most children live with relatives. Only a small
proportion are fostered or placed in a children's home. Because of a strong
sense of family and community in South African society it is unlikely that,
when relatives do actually exist, children will be placed elsewhere. The ideal
in traditional Southern African society is that in times of stress and change,
people draw from their cultural resources as a way of finding meaning in their
new circumstances (Speigal and McAllister, 1991). African customary law (which
needs to be recognised as a more modern construction of previous cultural
mores) emphasises that in marriage, a woman becomes a part of a man's family.
The children too are considered to belong to the father (Kubayi, 1998). It is
likely, then, that children who have lost both their parents, would
automatically be seen to be the father's family's responsibility. This cannot
be stated as an absolute rule, nor is it necessarily a reflection of what
actually happens. Further, even if paternal relatives do take over the care of
children, cultural traditions may not be quite as prescriptive about how they
may go about resolving their own ambivalence about the care of the children.
Prisoners'
families are generally stigmatised and ostracised in the wider community
(NACRO, 1994). Families who have suffered an imprisonment because of spousal
murder face issues on top of this. Children and their caregivers also have to
cope with the stigma and ostracism of having a mother in prison for killing
their father. Hendriks et al. (1993) found that children of fathers imprisoned
for killing their mothers often concealed the truth of the father's whereabouts
from neighbours, friends and school teachers. Caregivers and children may
invent stories of the mother working away from home in cases where a mother is
imprisoned for killing a father.
More
importantly, a mother's imprisonment disrupts the relationship between mother
and child and often with siblings as well. It has been shown that the
relationship and parent/child bond changes over time, with the parent and child
finding less in common with each other, especially when a long-term sentence is
served (Howard League, 1991). Where a woman is serving a short sentence
realistic plans for the future can be made. With long-term prisoners this is
difficult, if not impossible. Women serving long-term sentences have only a
partial view of their children's development from childhood to adolescence and
early adulthood. They do not have the opportunity to pass through these developmental
milestones with their children (Vogler, 1996). Time has the effect of standing
still. This, together with the actual circumstances that led to imprisonment,
can damage family relationships with children and the extended family. It may
be much harder to rebuild them after the woman's release from prison.
The
majority (10) of children in our sample were under 16 years old at the time of
the interviews, completed between November 2000 and February 2001. Their
mothers had already spent at least three years, and in some cases, up to eight
years in prison.
Age |
Gender |
|
Male |
Female |
|
6-10 |
2 |
1 |
11-15 |
3 |
3 |
16-20 |
1 |
3 |
21-25 |
0 |
3 |
Total |
6 |
10 |
Two
children were at a crucial stage of early bonding and attachment when their
mother was imprisoned. None were adults. They therefore all still needed
emotional and physical parenting. The separation also made worse an already
difficult situation, since the children had directly experienced and witnessed
domestic violence. The forced separation from their mother, their primary
caregiver, was a traumatic event at a time when their lives were in turmoil
because of their father's death. The separation from their mothers in most of
the cases caused a host of post-traumatic stress symptoms. The children's young
age at the time of their mother's imprisonment means that they will be
dependent on caregivers for a long time.
Age |
Gender |
|
Male |
Female |
|
0-5 |
1 |
1 |
6-10 |
3 |
5 |
11-15 |
2 |
0 |
16-20 |
0 |
4 |
Total |
6 |
10 |
I
can't spend time and play and be near mummy. I cry about it sometimes – but I
stop crying and keep quiet and pretend like I am playing computer games so that
my granny will not be worried. (Boy - age 10)
All
the children are distressed, angry, and ashamed by their mother's imprisonment.
Some see the imprisonment as fair given the deed. But they do not like seeing
their mother in prison and would rather have her home. Some maintain their
mother could not be guilty.
I
never used to believe that my mother could have done it [killed my father], but
everyone is saying it is true so it must be. And if it is true it's a terrible
thing so she should be in jail. (Girl - age 17)
Some
children, especially the younger ones, have constructed their mother's return
as the central theme in their lives. Some of the older children feel very
bitter about her incarceration. They don't like to be disappointed, and so they
don't think actively of her return especially given the long period of
separation many of them have endured. Many of the children long for the day
their mothers are released from prison to just be physically close to her. When
asked what they most looked forward to when their mothers are released, many
replied, "Just to be with her, and see her everyday and do stuff".
It
hurts being separated. I'm not happy here and would be happy if I was with my
mother. (Boy - age 11)
Family |
Number of children |
Length of separation |
|
Male |
Female |
||
A |
0 |
2 |
3 years 9 months |
B |
1 |
1 |
3 years 9 months |
C |
2 |
2 |
4 years 3 months |
D |
2 |
2 |
6 years 7 months |
E |
1 |
3 |
7 years 10 months |
Total |
6 |
10 |
26 years 2 months |
The
median length of separation from the mother is five years – a very long time
for children who were very young at the time of their mother's imprisonment
(see Table 3).
Some
of the children have been separated from their mothers for more than seven
years. Many of these children and mothers have lost touch with each other's
lives, a gap worsened by poor family support for many of the women. The
literature suggests that the longer a woman is imprisoned, the more likely it
is that conditions for the children deteriorate and get worse. Some children
are not being allowed to visit their mothers because they are in the care of
paternal relatives who want them sever ties with their mothers. This
intensifies the children's separation from their mothers as many long to see
their mothers but are simply unable to. This has detrimental effects on the
children and on the mother's capacity to continue a relationship. In one
family, the children were not allowed to speak about their mother. Their
paternal uncle was adamant that the children did not miss her. However, the
child confided in the interviewer:
I
miss my mother … I just want to see her. Sometimes I dream about her and she
would be taking me shopping for clothes. I want her to come home and take care
of us. I just want to see her. (Boy - age 11)
Frequency
of visit (approximate) |
Children
(number) |
Never |
5 |
Once in
the length of imprisonment |
2 |
Twice in
the length of imprisonment |
5 |
Once a
year |
1 |
Once a
month |
2 |
Once a
week |
1 |
Total |
16 |
*
At this stage the mothers had spent approximately between 3 and 8 years in
prison.
When
I see her I feel good and feel like I could stay with her forever, bring her
home and stay with her like old times. (Boy - age 10)
Often
the one thing that children look forward to most is visiting their mother.
Sadly, as Table 5 shows, they don't get to visit much. Very few women's prisons
in South Africa cater for long-term prisoners, so women are imprisoned far away
from their families, making the cost of the journey too high. Many of the older
caregivers face severe financial constraints, compounded by having an extra
child or children to care for, let alone money to afford journeys to prison.
Children, who are generally quite young, cannot travel such distances alone and
need the supervision of an adult. This increases the costs of visiting their
mothers.
Children's
contact with their mothers after her imprisonment depends on whether they are
being taken care of by their maternal or paternal relatives. Children who are
taken care of by maternal relatives have regular contact with their mothers
after her imprisonment. Because of their feelings towards the mother, paternal
relatives caring for children hardly ever – sometimes never – facilitated
prison visits. In some cases, paternal relatives have actively tried to
alienate the children from their mothers.
Your
mother is a witch and when she comes out [of prison] she'll kill you just like
she killed your father. (Paternal caregiver)
In
one case, the children have never seen their mother since her arrest and have
not even had telephone contact with her. These children have lost all sense of
a realistic relationship with their mother.
The
visiting conditions in prison are not conducive for quality time together. The
children usually face long waits in overcrowded waiting areas before the visit.
After a long journey this is taxing for both the children and their caregivers.
Waiting
by the gates is boring and we have to wait a long time until they call us.
(Girl - age 6)
Furniture
is bolted down in a sterile, concrete environment. There are no activities or
basic play areas for mothers to spend quality fun-time with their children. The
visits are usually only an hour – too short for a mother to spend time with
even one child, let alone having time to discuss important issues with the
child's caregiver. Visits are generally noisy and lack privacy. As a result,
children overhear information that they find disturbing.
I
can't talk to my mum when I visit her because it's noisy and there are far too
many people listening. (Girl - age 11)
What
I don't like about visiting my mum is seeing other women who are also in jail,
and hearing their sad and scary stories. Also I am not happy when I see how
dirty it is and the food is disgusting. (Girl - age 11)
Psychological/Emotional effects
All the children we interviewed experienced depression, anxiety and insecurity.
One child had attempted suicide twice since her mother's imprisonment, and
still had suicidal ideation – thinking of ways in which she could kill herself.
Pervasive feelings of anger, and of having been cheated were common.
When
I watch the girls of my age walking by, dressed up in nice clothes, going to
restaurants, I remember the time our father used to give us money to eat at
Wimpy. (Girl - age 20)
Children's
fear of abandonment was a common theme in all interviews. The children linked
this to having felt abandoned by their mother.
If
my husband leaves me now, who do I have left to rely on?(Girl - age 19)
Coping with their mother's absence
People
often use psychological coping mechanisms to protect themselves from the hurt
and pain of an event. Commonly, these children used fantasy, denial and anger.
Many
children fantasise about everything becoming better or 'the same' when the
mother is released from prison. Idealisation of the mother was also common as
children often accentuated only the good things about feeling secure and
protected.
When
my mom comes out everything will go back to the way it was before and we will
be happy. (Girl-age 11)
Avoidance
and/or denial were also common. Some children would not talk in detail about
the mother, or ask any questions. Some had stopped visiting their mother in
prison. Some children showed deep anger as a way of protecting themselves
against missing the mother during her absence.
Why
did she kill my father? … if she did not do it, she would not be in prison.
(Girl - age 11)
Two
children seemed to cope by increasing their religious observance.
Many
children experience real confusion and ambivalence about their father's death.
They are relieved that they do not have to endure more abuse from him. But they
miss a father figure, especially the younger children. Some older children did
not display ambivalent feelings about their father's death and said they were
glad he is dead.
All
the children have unresolved trauma regarding their own experience of abuse
from their fathers, as well as the circumstances of his death. They have to
deal with the violent nature of their father's death and their mother's role in
it. Many of the children have a profound sense of disbelief about their
mother's role in their father's death. They cannot reconcile the loving image
they have of her with such a violent action. What makes it worse is that the
majority of the mothers have not had an opportunity to explain their actions to
their children. This situation is exacerbated because a majority of the
children do not have any contact with their mothers. These children are left
suspended, unable to resolve their ambivalence. This is destructive for their
identities as well as their relationship with their mothers.
Stealing and lying
A few children stole periodically, which seems related to their need for
nurturing, care and attention and not necessarily related to material need. One
child stole money to buy a gift for the mother – the money had been taken near
Christmas or the mother's birthday, with the stated intention of buying her a
nice present. However, there are two cases where stealing seems to have been
motivated by deprivation, for example where clothes were stolen, and money to
buy food. Lying is common among many of the children.
Aggression and regression
Fighting at school and aggressive behaviour among the younger children occurs.
In some cases this has resulted in suspension from school. One of the older
children has comparatively recently been found guilty of assault in a court of
law. It is impossible to say whether this is directly related to the mother's
absence, or whether it might have been encouraged by the child's witness to
years of serious violence in the home.
One
child very strongly regresses whenever she visits her mother. She begins to
talk and act about five years younger than her chronological age. This is
probably because she needs care and to recapture her past relationship with the
mother. Other regression includes bedwetting, crawling even when able to walk,
and an inability to sleep alone at night for many of the children who had
previously mastered this stage of development.
Performance at school
Most children's school performance was mediocre to very poor – a direct impact
of having to change schools frequently. It is also clearly related to emotional
stress and inability to perform optimally under those conditions. Commonly
children were repeating grades.
I
failed my standard eight and I had to repeat it and that was the hardest moment
of my life. I started to remember everything, thinking about the time I was
living with my parents, how my aunties treated me after my father died. They
were always telling me that I helped my mother to kill him and they said I am
not their brother's daughter. So I started to think whether he is or not. It
started to affect me, even when I am reading, I don't know what I am reading
because I can't concentrate. (Girl - age 16)
One
child had to drop out of school because she did not have the practical means to
continue, and was concerned with basic survival.
I
remember the time when my daddy punched my mummy in the nose and she started
bleeding. There was so much blood. My brother ran to the bathroom to fetch
toilet paper and forgot to tear off a piece. The toilet paper followed him to
the kitchen." (Girl - age 6)
Family
life before the death of the father8 was
characterised by chronic violence and abuse in all the families. All the
children witnessed the violence that their mothers were subjected to. In most
cases, they were also subjected to abuse. They were thus both direct and
indirect victims of domestic violence. The children's experiences varied in the
extent and range of abuse they were exposed to or experienced. In some
families, the children saw their mother's being repeatedly and severely beaten
and sustaining physical injury. Often, some of the older children played
care-giving functions for their younger siblings and their mothers. In all of
the cases the children wanted to help their mothers from suffering abuse at the
hands of their fathers. But they felt powerless to do so because of their age
and lack of power in the household.
The
children were subjected to the abusive circumstances under which their mothers
lived. If their father chose to deprive the mother of basic necessities such as
food and clothing, the children suffered the neglect as well. Fathers drew the
children into their abusive behaviour by asking them to monitor and report on
their mother's activities, visitors, and phone calls.
In
the majority of families, the trauma of witnessing violence was compounded by
the children's own experiences of emotional, physical and/or sexual abuse by
their fathers.
Age |
Total children |
Type of Abuse |
||||
Physical |
Sexual |
Emotional |
Witness to parental violence |
Neglect |
||
0-5 |
4 |
2 |
0 |
4 |
4 |
3 |
6-10 |
6 |
4 |
1 |
6 |
6 |
3 |
11-15 |
4 |
3 |
2 |
4 |
3 |
0 |
16-20 |
2 |
2 |
0 |
2 |
1 |
1 |
Total |
16 |
11 |
3 |
16 |
14 |
7 |
Table
6 shows that most of the children witnessed parental violence, and that all
were emotionally abused by their fathers. Emotional abuse included verbal
abuse, insults, emotional cruelty, and drawing some of the children into
abusive behaviour. Many fathers neglected their children, both emotionally and
physically. Most often, even though they had the means, the fathers would stop
buying necessities such as food and clothing for the children. Most of the men
stopped the women from working outside of the home, and the children also
suffered the adverse consequences.
The
physical abuse the children experienced differed widely in severity and
frequency. Some were beaten severely, resulting in physical injury requiring
medical treatment or hospitalisation. Others suffered less physical injury. The
father-figure sexually abused a small percentage of the children in our study.
This ranged from one incident to ongoing rape and sexual molestation. None of
the sexually abused children were the biological children of the father figure.
None of the male children reported sexual abuse.
Table
6 shows that most of the children experienced abuse and trauma during the 3-5
year and adolescent developmental stages. This, the literature suggests, is
when children are more vulnerable to the effects of the abuse. These repeated
traumatic events, even if brief in nature, in many cases was imprinted on the
children's memories. It is something they have to struggle to come to terms
with over a long period of time.
It
was like my parents were stubborn together because they were always fighting
and arguing all the time. There was no time that you could see them laughing,
playing together, going out or be happy at home. (Girl - age 16)
Defence mechanisms
Children who are abused or witness domestic violence develop defence mechanisms
so they can continue living in a constantly threatening environment. In our
sample two of the children experienced epileptic seizures either while
witnessing parental abuse, or when such violence was imminent. It is likely
that these seizures are the product of disassociation.
Depression
Most of the children showed features of depression or were diagnosed as
depressed by doctors. Some of the symptoms included insomnia, poor
concentration, difficulty in concentrating at school, and thinking about how to
commit suicide (suicidal ideation). One child was hospitalised for depression
and was prescribed anti-depressants. Her doctor found her condition to be
linked to her parents' conflict.
All
the time I feel sad I feel like keeping it a secret. I try not to think about
it [being sad] and start to play. Sometimes I look around the garden or play
with my hula-hoop. (Girl -age 6)
Anxiety and impaired self-esteem
Some of the children developed an intense fear of their fathers. In some cases
this was then generalised to all men. This reaction is common for children who
are abused.
I
don't like Oupa so much. I don't want to play with him. I don't like playing
with men. (Girl – age 11)
Most
children shared experiences and feelings that indicated impaired self-esteem
and a high level of anxiety resulting from experiencing and witnessing abuse.
Some of the children experienced post-traumatic stress symptoms such as
flashbacks of violent events, being preoccupied with thoughts of the abusive
parental home, nightmares, or being hyper-vigilant. In some cases the children
were afraid of all men and raised voices, as this caregiver observed:
Sometimes
I would raise my voice and scold them. They would find the smallest corner and
hide themselves for hours, quietly and shiver. I would call for them but they
would not come out until I looked for them and reassured them. (Caregiver of a
four- and a six-year old)
Somatisation
Somatisation or developing health problems such as headaches, stomachaches or
other medical problems, which required medical attention, was common.
The children's behavioural reactions to living in an abusive home
Some of the children, particularly older girls who at the time were barely ten
years old, had to take on adult responsibilities at an early age. As outlined
in the literature review, children who experience domestic violence often
perform care-giving roles for younger siblings and their mothers. This is
because their mothers are incapacitated through injury and pre-occupied with
dealing with the violence in their lives.
We
found evidence of children's declining performance at school because of poor
concentration. We also found evidence of children's attempts to block out
abuse. We noted a range of social problems, including suspected drug use and
playing truant from school.
Some
of the children became passive and withdrawn (internalising symptoms) while
others exhibited increased aggression (externalising symptoms) – with both
siblings and with peers at school. This is a feature of being both a direct
victim of and witnessing domestic violence.
When
the fathers denied the children and their mother's basic necessities, children
would resort to fulfilling their needs elsewhere. As a result some of the
children would ask for food from neighbours because of paternal neglect.
In
some cases the abuse also impacted on relationships with the extended family,
where the children blamed others, like the paternal grandmother, for being
complicit in and causing their mother to be abused. This damaged the
relationship in the long-term and was an added burden to children when the same
relatives took care of them in the aftermath of their father's death and
mother's imprisonment.
All
of the children experienced emotional and physical insecurity due to the abuse.
They endured the repeated cycles of fleeing their homes with their mothers to
escape the abuse, then returning to the abusive father, and experiencing a
sense of divided loyalties between the parents.
Gender |
Both parents |
Other |
Male |
6 |
0 |
Female |
8 |
2 |
Total |
14 |
2 |
Before
the death of the father and the imprisonment of the mother, all except two of
the children were living in a nuclear family unit –children with their parents.
Both parents were superficially providing care. However our interviews with the
children showed that the mother was providing almost all the emotional and
physical care.
In
all cases the mother was caring, protective, and wanted the best for her
children – even when it put her at risk in some way. This included, for
example, prosecuting her husband for sexual abuse of the children, and
shielding children from witnessing or experiencing paternal abuse.
The
quality of mothering varied. In general though, and consistent with the theory
in the literature, the mother was a consistent figure and not abusive towards
the children. In just two of our cases the mother was allegedly abusive on
occasion towards a particular child. These two children are now independent
young adults and their safety should no longer be an immediate concern on the
release of the mother. We found no evidence of any of the mothers being
generally violent or abusive towards the children. The mother did find
mothering difficult in the chaos and conflict in the home. The mothering was thus
not 'perfect', but in many cases certainly 'good enough'.
The
father's eventual death at the hands of the mother after her enduring years of
abuse, was a major crisis and shock for all of the children. Sadly, most did
not have access to full information about what happened, and some still do not.
So the event was, for the children, unclear and intensely confusing.
Misinformation is common, as relatives do not know how or chose not to tell the
children. Because they do not have factual information the children construct
their own stories of their father's whereabouts. This makes them vulnerable to
learning potentially devastating news from friends and others. Because adults
do not know how and what to tell children, the oldest children are often by
default left with the job of briefing their siblings – an enormous
responsibility for a child.
I
haven't seen my father for a long time. [My sister] says he is dead but when I
ask her why or how he died, she cries and won't tell me. (Boy - age 11)
She
killed my father … my sisters told me. I thought my father was alive. I thought
he was working somewhere. It's a long time ago. (Girl - age 11)
When
we lived with my parents we had bicycles. Now we don't even have food and
clothes. (Boy - age 11)
I
would like to stay with my sister and my younger brother next year. We are not
living very well here and we missed our mother and sister since we came here.
They do not buy us food and clothes. They always eat the money they come with.
They do not do anything with us. We are just dolls here. I miss my mother,
father and sister. I wish we could stay with our sister so that the money that
comes here, our sister can buy us food and clothes. (Boy - age 15)
All
children living in the family home had an immediate change in lifestyle and
accommodation after their mother went to prison. And then they often
experienced further changes until a more long-term solution was set up. This
meant that the children experienced huge physical changes. This included for
most the loss of their home environment and neighbourhood, local friends, often
their school, and a drop in living standards.
Thembi,
whose story introduces our study, changed accommodation at least ten times in
three years. She was abandoned and virtually became homeless. She had to fend
for herself and her basic survival needs, forcing her to leave school with an
incomplete education.
In
our study, paternal relatives care for the majority of the children. This does
not follow the trend emerging from the literature on the care of children after
a mother's imprisonment. This difference can be attributed to South Africa's
patrilineal culture, where children are thought to belong to their father's
family, and are seen as the paternal relatives' responsibility. This has
definite implications for the children's standard of care.
Gender |
Paternal relative |
Maternal relative |
Independent |
Male |
4 |
1 |
1 |
Female |
5 |
2 |
3 |
Total |
9 |
3 |
4 |
Children
cared for by maternal relatives received the best care by far. Paternal
caregivers displayed very clear ambivalence, and at times outright hostility,
towards the children.
Caregivers
were mostly of the older generation (i.e. grandparents). Some were much younger
e.g. one caregiver was only 21 years old when she began taking care of four
children, the oldest of which was only 13 years old. The age of the caregiver
has definite implications for the care of the children. They were at a time in
their lives when they were not prepared to be parental figures for such young
children, and so parent by default. They have neither the physical stamina nor
the requisite skills to cope with traumatised children. In the case of very
young caregivers, the boundaries between parent and friend was often blurred,
resulting in ineffective and sometimes negligent parenting.
Being
very old or very young also means that these caregivers are bound to be
experiencing financial strain themselves. Fitting dependent children into their
lifestyles is both an added physical and financial burden.
Emotional care
There is a huge range in emotional care, from good (found in maternal
caregivers) to non-existent (in paternal caregivers). Those children staying
with the paternal family are most likely to be emotionally neglected. The may
have adequate food, shelter and educational provision. But they have almost no
communication with the caregivers and certainly no emotional input or support
from them.
Presence of abuse
The hostility (or at least the ambivalence) that the paternal family feels in
caring for the children of the woman who killed their relative is played out in
active physical and emotional abuse of some of the children. One of the
caregivers acknowledged this abuse.
Type of abuse |
Total |
Physical |
8 |
Sexual |
0 |
Emotional |
9 |
Neglect |
8 |
Abandonment |
1 |
Financial |
8 |
No abuse |
4 |
The
thing I am most scared of is coming home from school because I know my uncle
will beat me. (Boy - age 11)
Caregivers' misuse of children's funds/grants
The children's financial care is a major issue as there is no breadwinner left
in the immediate family. In all carer families there was a struggle to
incorporate the children into the budget. However, there is also evidence of
misuse and abuse of children's funds in paternal families. In one case the
money received from the father's estate was never used to maintain the
children. The children went without clothes, food and schooling. In another
case, a paternal relative with an alcohol dependency squandered the money from
the father's estate.
Children
living with maternal relatives received good care but these relatives also
experienced a great deal of ambivalence about their daughter/sister/relative's
actions. Many feel guilty about not intervening in the abusive relationship and
so possibly preventing the abusive husband's murder. All experienced adjustment
difficulties in having to care for such young children especially children
bringing with them a host of psychological and behavioural problems requiring,
in some cases, intensive care and commitment to a counselling programme. Many
caregivers were themselves of an older generation and so struggled to re-adjust
to parenting very young children, although paternal relatives were less ready
to acknowledge this.
He
was being very naughty kicking the back door. So I told him that if he
continued all his naughty mischief the police would catch him and put him in
jail. He stopped immediately and asked if they could put him with his mother.
(Maternal caregiver)
Children,
being dependent, often had to make emotional and physical adjustments to the
new caregiver. But there was very little accommodation from the caregiver's
side, especially with paternal relatives. We found that maternal caregivers
made significant changes in both their living arrangements and lifestyles to
accommodate the children. One maternal caregiver noted:
In
the beginning it was very tough because the children were afraid to sleep
alone. My husband and I did not even share the same bedroom, because the
children were afraid of any man. I would sleep in the middle of the bed, facing
up with a child on either side of me, one arm each for one of them. (Maternal
caregiver)
There
is evidence of major role changes experienced after the mothers' imprisonment,
especially for the older girls. Some took over the care of their siblings and
became parental figures.
In
one case the oldest girl child was barely ten years old when she had to take
over the major responsibility of running a household. At the same time her
grandfather was actively abusing her. This child began to understand the impact
of being abused, and her mother's actions.
My
grandfather used to always beat me and call me names, like snake and witch and
stuff like that. Especially when he was drunk. Wherever he came from he wanted
food, and he said to me that when he came home he wanted to find food ready for
him to eat. So when I come home from school I have to cook and do all the stuff
and have to read my books. I even had a knife that I kept under my pillow and I
used to think the next time he beats me I am going to kill him. I understood
how my mother felt when she was being beaten. (Girl - age 16)
At
least two of the older girls we interviewed had assumed adult roles and
responsibilities earlier than the norm. They were both mothers before turning
twenty years old. One was already married. This may also be the result of
wanting and longing for emotional nurturing denied them for long.
Many
children are deeply angry with their mother, partly regarding her role in the
death of the father (or father figure). But they are especially angry around
their perception that mother abandoned them. At the same time, almost all truly
wanted and needed their mother with them. This ambivalence remains unresolved
while the mother is in prison, which is very destructive for their future
relationship.
Some
children have had no, or very limited, contact with their mother since her
imprisonment. This makes it difficult to maintain their relationship, causing
them to lose touch with the realities and happenings in one another's lives.
Most
of the children see their mother as an idealised figure that can mend all their
problems. This has serious implications for deep emotional disappointment for
when their mother is finally released.
I
don't know how long I will stay married as marriages never last. (Girl - age
19)
All
the children have major issues around trust in relationships, both as a result
of experiencing domestic violence and of being separated from their primary
caregiver (mother) at such a tender age. As a result they have major difficulty
in both forming and sustaining relationships. This is true of relationships
with current caregivers, peers and, in the older children, in relationships
with the opposite sex. Those married or in a longer-term relationships
acknowledged having difficulties related to trust and betrayal. They had little
faith in marriages lasting. For them, issues of dependency, reliance,
unconditional love and care all remain elusive and difficult to recreate in
other relationships. Views on their own likelihood of marriage ranged from
fantasy of a wonderful, caring husband to extreme negativity around marriage
and relationships. Some said they never want to marry.
All
the children experienced deep shame about the events in their lives. They did
not all experience active stigma, but there was a universal perception that
they will meet stigma 'out there'. Telling others, such as peers, about their
circumstances poses a huge problem for all the children. So many have not
disclosed to friends where their mothers are, opting instead for creating
'cover stories', such as their mother working away from home. In some cases
their peers' negative comments about their mothers, was the direct cause of the
children's aggression.
All
the children have an antagonistic, unhealthy relationship with their paternal
relatives. These relatives displace the animosity they feel towards the mother
onto the children. In at least two of the families, the oldest daughters were
accused of assisting their mother to murder their father. This has damaged the
relationship significantly. The accusations leave these children at the fringes
of the paternal families.
An
older girl child, now in the care of paternal relatives, who was accused of
being complicit in her father's murder was told that she was not her father's
biological daughter. They began actively abusing her. This has been intensely
confusing for her, an adolescent trying to make sense of her identity. She is
still unsure of her paternity, despite her mother's reassurance that she is the
biological daughter of her father. As a result of this allegation she once ran
away from home in an attempt to find her 'real' father.
Relationships
between siblings are generally healthy, except where there is a
pseudo-mothering relationship between two siblings, where it is unusually
close. This was most evident in children who are taken care of by paternal
relatives, where the oldest child has assumed a pseudo-parenting role. Some
children have been separated as a result of their mother's imprisonment. In
these cases the siblings long to recreate a family unit, similar to the one
they had before.
All
children with a parent (s) in prison face particular challenges and difficulties.
But there are unique features that make these particular children more
vulnerable to the effects of their mother's imprisonment than in other cases
where the parents are imprisoned:
·
these
children have lost both parents at once in traumatic circumstances, and their
primary caregivers are in prison. Almost all the children have extreme issues
of loss, fear of abandonment, and difficulty forming and maintaining
relationships.
·
the
quality of these children's social supports, social networks and care are
usually conditional on whether the paternal or maternal family cares for them.
Paternal relatives provide care in a negative context, ranging from general
ambivalence to active hostility towards the children. This can include:
o
Stopping
the child from visiting the mother;
o
Contaminating
the child's relationship with the mother through exhibiting a hostile and
conflictual attitude towards her;
o
Active
emotional, financial or physical abuse of the children.
·
These
children have major unresolved relationship issues with their mothers. In
particular, they have not resolved the role of their mother in the death of
their father. All of them are aware of the abuse their mother suffered. But on
some level a few children believe imprisonment is just. At the same time they
all feel her loss keenly and are hoping for her release.
·
Some
of these children have been accused by their paternal family of having been
complicit in their father's murder. This is very distressing for the children.
It also has serious negative implications for the level of care that they might
receive;
·
All
these children have had to, and continue to, re-cast their own identities. They
have to deal with and make sense of who they are in relation to their abusive
fathers who then died violently. And they also have to deal with their mother's
role in it, her subsequent imprisonment, and what this means for them. In some
cases this process is made much harder by family forces which commonly either
claim or disown the children's identity;
·
When
family ambivalence and conflict is present, children have a diminished
likelihood of positive reconstitution and reconstruction of their family when
the mother is released. This is exacerbated by:
o
external
constraints, such as paternal family not wanting to have anything at all to do
with child's mother;
o
the
mother and children having, in the main, completely lost touch with the day to
day reality of each other's lives. Most children have developed a distorted
(usually idealised) version of their mother that is impossible for her to live
up to;
o
the
family's loss of their material possessions including their homes (sometimes to
paternal relatives)
·
These
children face long-term insecurity and confusion because they have been given
little information, or most often misinformation, about the context of losing
their father and mother.
·
On top
of their previous life of trauma through living in a home characterised by
domestic violence, these children are further traumatised by their mother's
imprisonment.
·
These
children do not get the emotional space they need to resolve their trauma –
trauma resulting from both from living in an abusive home environment (in some
cases even after the imprisonment of their mother) and from being separated
from their mother.
·
These
children are usually put in the care of the older generation, like
grandparents, who are less able emotionally, physically, and financially to
care for them properly.
The
law grants children a special legal status which should ensure them certain
protections and rights. Children become adults at 21 years old under some laws,
and at 18 years old according to international law and our Constitution. Our
recommendations are made within the following international and South African
legal and policy framework.
South
Africa ratified this convention on 16 June 1995. It sets standards and
universal principles for the status of children. Upon ratification the state
took upon itself an obligation to the international community to honour the
spirit and letter of the rights of the child. All South African laws and
administrative policies now have to conform to these norms. The CRC reaffirms
that children need special care, including legal and other protections. It
emphasises the family's role in caring for children, and respecting the
cultural values of a child's community.
The
convention outlines articles that serve to ensure children's survival,
developmental, protection, and participation rights. Some of the articles are
of special relevance to children who live in situations of domestic violence
and are affected by maternal imprisonment as a result of spousal murder:
·
Article
3: All actions concerning the child must take into account the best interest of
the child.
·
Article
9. The child has a right to live with his/her parents unless deemed to be
incompatible with the child's best interest. The child also has the right to
maintain contact with parents if separated from one or both.
·
Article
19. The state has a duty to protect the child from all forms of maltreatment by
parents or others responsible for the care of the child. And it has a duty to
establish appropriate programmes for the prevention of abuse and treatment of
victims [of abuse].
·
Article
25. A child who is placed by the state for reasons of care, protection or
treatment is entitled to have that placement evaluated regularly.
·
Article
37. Torture, cruel treatment or punishment, and deprivation of liberty is
prohibited by the CRC.
·
Article
39. The state is obliged to ensure that children who have suffered neglect,
torture, or maltreatment receive appropriate treatment for their physical and
psychological recovery and social re-integration.
The
convention places a responsibility on the state to consider the best interest
of the child in all actions concerning the child. This may imply a duty to
ensure that the impact on a child because of maternal imprisonment be fully
appreciated before passing sentence. Further it places obligations on the state
to develop policy and services which protect children from harm and to provide
services for children who come from abusive homes. It also holds the state
accountable for ensuring that when children are placed in the guardianship of
other people other than the caregiver (when they lose a primary caregiver as a
result of spousal murder), this placement is regularly evaluated to ensure that
the children are being properly cared for.
South
Africa ratified this charter in January 2000. The charter embraces the same
norms contained in the CRC. But it includes a more collective focus on rights.
The Organisation of African Unity wrote it to better reflect African cultural
concerns, and to address issues not covered in the CRC. For the charter to be
enforced, 15 member states need to ratify it. By 2001, 19 OAU States ratified
the Charter (Department of Foreign Affairs, 2001), which means the Charter now
comes into force. By ratifying the Charter, South Africa "… undertook to
faithfully observe and fulfil the stipulations contained therein"
(Department of Foreign Affairs, 2001:2).
Article
30 specifically addresses the needs of children whose mothers are imprisoned,
and protection of children from harmful social and cultural practices. It
outlines that:
States should undertake to provide special treatment to expectant mothers and
mothers of infants and young children who have been accused, or found guilty of
a criminal offence. In particular it should:
·
ensure
that a non-custodial sentence will always be first considered when sentencing
mothers;
·
establish
and promote measures alternative to institutional confinement for the treatment
of mothers;
·
establish
special alternative institutions for holding such mothers;
·
ensure
that a mother shall not be imprisoned with her child;
·
see
that the essential aim of the penitentiary system will be the reformation, the
integration of the mother to the family, and social rehabilitation.
This
Charter's strength is that it recognises that the judicial process affects men
and women (and their dependants) differently. It takes into account the social
realities of women who are the primary caregivers of children, and it acknowledges
the detrimental effects on the child of the mother's imprisonment.
The
South African Constitution provides protection for children. It requires that
all matters concerning children be guided by what is in the child's best
interests. Section 28 draws on international conventions and treaties on the
protection of children. Some of them include children's right to:
·
family
care or parental care, or to appropriate alternative care when removed from the
family environment;
·
be
protected from maltreatment, neglect, abuse or degradation;
·
Have a
legal practitioner assigned to the child by the state, at state expense in
civil proceedings affecting the child, if substantial injustice would otherwise
result.
These
provisions provide the state with an opportunity to carefully consider whether
or not to impose custodial sentences on mothers in circumstances where this
would not be in the child's best interests. It also makes provision for
children to have legal representation when deciding issues of custody and
guardianship. Given the family alliances after the death of one parent at the
hand of another, children's assets need protection. Their independent wishes
need to be considered to prevent injustice and further abuse.
This
act describes a child who has no parent or guardian, no visible support, or
living in circumstances where they are abused or may suffer harm as
"children in need of care". Chapter 8 of the Child Care Act details
the State's responsibility in preventing the ill-treatment of children. It
prescribes that:
·
any
person (parent, guardian or any other person who has custody of a child) who
ill-treats a child or allows the child to be ill-treated, or abandons a child
is guilty of an offence;
·
a
person who is legally responsible for maintaining a child, and is able to do so
but fails to provide the child with adequate food, clothes and medical care is
guilty of an offence;
·
a
person convicted of these offences is liable to a fine not exceeding R20 000,
or imprisonment not exceeding five years, or both.
The
Child Care Amendment Act of 1996 makes provision for the appointment of a legal
representative for children, at the state's expense, in children's court
proceedings. Prior to this, no mechanism existed for the appointment of a legal
representation for children who were the subject of children's court inquiries,
even when there was a clear conflict between children and caregivers which
necessitated child advocacy (Nielsen and Van Heerden, 1998). The amendment is
especially useful given the circumstances under which children find themselves
after the imprisonment of their mother, whereby they are left vulnerable to
further financial and other abuse by caregivers. It also asserts that the
children's voices must be heard.
The
act provides for special attention to be given to children in especially
difficult circumstances. This includes children who experience violence. A
further regulation of the Act calls for family reunification services.
Permanency planning is also provided for. This means that the child should be
given the opportunity to grow up in his/her own family. Where this is not
possible, or not in the child's best interest, a time-limited plan should be
instituted which works towards lifelong relationships in the family.
The
act provides for the creation of a national child protection register, as well
notification by dentists, teachers, doctors and social workers of the
ill-treatment or deliberate injury of a child. As such, and to prevent further
abuse, teachers and other care workers who come into contact with children who
experience active abuse from any relative are by law obliged to report it.
The
White Paper for Social Welfare identifies children of divorcing parents as a
vulnerable group. But what is worrying is that it does not give the same recognition
to either children of imprisoned parents, or those who experience domestic
violence.
The
Domestic Violence Act provides for children to obtain a protection order
without the aid of an adult.
Children
may obtain a protection order against physical abuse, sexual abuse, emotional,
verbal and psychological abuse, economic abuse, intimidation and threats,
harassment, stalking, damaging of property, or any other controlling or abusive
behaviour towards the child where such conduct harms or may cause imminent harm
to the child's safety or well-being (Domestic Violence Act, 1998).
It
should be noted that even for adult women, obtaining a protection order is
complicated and mediated by such factors as literacy, geographic location,
language and financial status (see Parenzee et. al 2001). For children this may
be an even more difficult process.
The
state's approach is to promote family life, survival, protection and
development of children within a developmental welfare approach. This white
paper identifies children who experience abuse and neglect as a constituency in
need of welfare intervention.
It
does not draw specific links between the interrelationship of domestic violence
and child abuse. So there is no specific clause or approach for intervening on
behalf of children who witness domestic violence or experience it directly.
Families in need of immediate and special support are thought to be those where
children have disabilities, the elderly or those who have chronic illnesses.
There is no specific reference made to provide assistance to families where
children experience domestic violence.
The
section on women delineates violence against women as an area for welfare
intervention. The guidelines for the strategy neglect the inter-relationship
between the welfare needs of women and their children. As in the section that
deals with violence and abuse of children, services isolated are trauma
management for women survivors of domestic violence, to the exclusion of child
witnesses and victims. Thus in both the specific sections on children and women
the needs of child witness and survivors of domestic violence are neglected –
and so omitted.
The
policy provision for dealing with crime prevention and restorative justice
include providing services to the families of prisoners, as well as those
awaiting trial. Specific policy provision is aimed at preserving family life
through facilitating contact between prisoners and their families, and facilitating
meeting the social needs of the prisoner's family. These guidelines also
advocate for imprisonment as a last resort, with community sentences to be
considered as a first option. None of these guidelines are currently being
implemented. The strength of these guidelines is in the commitment to
maintaining family relationships for the duration of a mother's imprisonment,
and providing social assistance to the prisoner's family. Should this provision
be adopted in a protocol for children who are affected by maternal
imprisonment, it would circumvent the visiting difficulties faced by children
who are taken care of by embittered relatives.
The
National Programme of Action (NPA) framework for South Africa was launched by
the State in May 1996. It is a policy framework that is conceptualized as the
instrument through which the State's commitment to children, as identifies in
the convention on the Rights of the Child, and the Constitution of South Africa
is given life. The NPA is centrally co-ordinated from the Office of the
President. The vision of the NPA is to 'Put Children First' and to advance the
best interest of the child in all matters affecting them (National Programme of
Action Steering Committee, 2000). There are seven priority policy areas
contained within the NPA: infrastructure, special protection measures
(including children in difficult circumstances and those affected by violence),
education, child and maternal health, nutrition, leisure and recreation and
peace and non- violence.
Essentially
the NPA framework seeks to mainstream and integrate children's issues into all
government departments. Mainstreaming implies that each government department
incorporates issues concerning children into their work and this should be
reflected by a corresponding budgetary commitment. This approach requires the
various government departments to work in an integrated and holistic manner in
all mattes affecting children. One of the general challenges has been the
absence of the NPA in contributing to and reviewing government White Papers, or
other policies. This is an area that the NPA has to become actively involved
in, to ensure that issues affecting children are taken into account when
developing policy. The NPA's vision of putting children first has many
implications. One of these is the Department of Justice should always consider
the impact on children before imposing prison sentences on women who have
killed abusive partners. It also strengthens the recommendation for the
development of an inter- sectoral protocol to provide services to children
affected by spousal murder, as this is the essence of the approach of the NPA.
The
Children's Charter, although not legally binding, was adopted in June 1992.
Children, at the International Summit on The Rights of Children in South
Africa, drew up this Charter. Article 6 of the Charter, specifies that children
need to be protected from domestic violence and where children are abandoned or
orphaned because of such violence need to be placed in a safe and secure
'family'. The NPA recommends that children need to be active participants in
the development of the NPA process. The needs of children affected by domestic
violence as identified in the Children's Charter should thus be given
expression in national policy development as one way of demonstrating
commitment to the participation of children in the NPA process. The needs of
children affected by domestic violence as identified in the Children's Charter
should thus be given expression in national policy development as one way of
demonstrating commitment to the participation of children in the NPA process.
We
are not recommending that women should not be punished for crimes they commit.
But long-term imprisonment of the women, especially in the context of having
endured domestic violence, is patently not in the children's best interests.
The stipulations of the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child
should be honoured, ensuring a more creative balance between imprisonment and
correctional supervision. The women we are referring to are not habitual
criminals; they are not a danger to society. Their long-term incarceration does
not serve society, when we take into consideration the serious emotional and
environmental problems it causes their children.
The
Howard League (1991) contends that the state is obliged, in terms of the United
Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), to protect children from all
forms of discrimination or punishment 'on the basis of the status, activities,
expressed opinions or beliefs of the child's parents, legal guardians, or
family members'.
This
means that the state must take steps to ensure that children of imprisoned
parents do not consequently suffer punishment: material, emotional, or
psychological. The Howard League (1991) argues that the mother's imprisonment
is usually not in the child's best interest. It therefore contravenes Article 9
of the CRC, which states that children have the right to live with their
parents, unless it is deemed not to be in the child's best interest.
Seeking
to provide alternatives to imprisonment, the sentence of correctional supervision
was introduced in South Africa in 1992. Correctional supervision is a
community-based sentence which can be given for any crime, even for serious
offences such as murder (Dissel,
1997). Given this sentence, women could either be released immediately to
serve their sentence in the community, or serve an initial period of
imprisonment and the remainder of their sentence as correctional supervision.
Correctional supervision allows for rehabilitation within the community, and so
it preserves the vital links between the woman and her family. We suggest that
a social worker's report on the possible impact on children of a mothers'
imprisonment be a requirement and consideration for the passing of sentences.
If
imprisonment is necessary, we recommend the effect on the family be considered
when deciding where women are held. Sending a woman to a prison far from her
home and children makes it far more difficult to maintain family relationships.
The
Correctional Services Act 111 of 1998 and the White Paper on Social Development
(1997) identifies responsibility for maintaining contact between a sentenced
prisoner (and those awaiting trial) and their community and family. The White
Paper on Social Development makes a commitment to facilitating this. We suggest
the following.
·
children
need more time with their mothers to maintain a realistic and meaningful
relationship. Mothers serving long-term prison sentences must have increased
and extended visitation rights so they can spend quality time with their
families. One hour a week is not enough to maintain a proper relationship with
even one child, let alone more than one and their caregiver;
·
the
Department of Social Development, in conjunction with the Department of
Correctional Services, should ensure that children from families with limited
financial means, or from families reluctant to encourage visits, are not
prevented from visiting their mothers and facilitate such visits;
·
the
visiting environment in prison should be more conducive for mothers to develop
and maintain their maternal relationship with their child. This could, for
example, mean providing a basic play centre for mothers and children. This will
help foster a positive parent/child relationship. It will offer mothers, their
children, and the caregivers more privacy to discuss important matters and also
minimise the negative environmental impact on the children.
Long-term
imprisonment damages the mother and child relationship. When women do leave
prison, they cannot simply pick up where they left off. When women are released
from prison they face a multitude of difficult issues to deal with such as poor
financial circumstances, no housing, and the stress of re-adjustment (Woodrow,
1996). Children too experience a range of problems both emotionally and
psychologically. Mother and child may also have lost touch with the realities
of each other's lives. The women will need assistance in parenting again after
missing out on their children's development stages. Family reconstruction
services should be provided, perhaps by the Department of Social Development,
to ensure a smoother transition in rebuilding a family unit.
The
legal and policy framework on children's rights needs to make explicit links
between the abuse of a woman and her children within the context of domestic
violence, and spousal killing as a result of the abuse. These links need to be
expressed through developing policy and guidelines for providing services to these
children.
While
children of divorcing parents are seen as a vulnerable group within the White
Paper on Social Welfare, equal attention is not given to children who live in
homes where they are both direct and indirect victims of domestic violence.
Arguably, being exposed to direct abuse and/or witnessing parental violence has
more severe and longer term effects than divorce.
Children
who are affected by spousal murder should be classified as children in
especially difficult circumstances. This will afford these children the care,
protection, and services previously not received. Where children have lost both
parents/caregivers on the imprisonment of a mother, the type of care these
children subsequently receive must be closely monitored.
The
Department of Social Development should monitor whether the children are
neglected or being physically or emotionally abused. The Department of Social
Development should also assist children and their caregivers in meeting their
social needs, as identified in the White Paper on Social Welfare. Social
workers need to actively use the issue of permanency planning – whereby the
children have an opportunity to grow up in their own family– as this will
resolve children's living arrangements and caregivers in the event of long-term
imprisonment.
Financial
mismanagement of the children's assets, including inheritance of property or
money needs to be stymied. The Child Care Act could be applied creatively
through appointing a legal representative to ensure that the child's best
interests are kept foremost in all respects when guardianship is decided. The
child's wishes may also be taken into consideration under the rubric of this
act.
To
meet the needs of children affected by spousal murder, a protocol for the
Departments Safety and Security and Social Development should be developed.
Hendriks et al (1993) suggests a useful framework for workers who deal with
domestic violence:
·
protect
children, especially young ones, from frightening, distressing sights and
sounds that will affect them, like police sirens, and witnessing the arrest of
a parent;
·
keep
all children, especially those under five years, with familiar caretakers
wherever possible. This could be a familiar family member, neighbour or family
friend. Siblings should be kept together to minimise the trauma of loss;
·
where
a familiar caretaker is not available, the state should appoint a
caretaker/social worker to the children. This person needs to be able to keep
the child informed of developments, and be able to answer any of their
questions;
·
screen
all children involved, including those not present at the time but affected by
the death and imprisonment, for psychological problems immediately, and over
the next two to three months. Make arrangements for appropriate help for the
children;
·
offer
group or individual debriefing for children as soon as possible and offer
bereavement counselling for those who require it;
·
offer
the children group counseling;
In
addition to theses tasks, social workers need to actively assist children and
their new caregivers during the initial aftermath of the death of a parent and
imprisonment of the mother. This needs to be done through the medium and
long-term. Here are some suggested steps:
·
assistance
with the immediate physical security needs and accommodation of the child/children
should be given. Social workers can also assist caregivers to provide children
with age-appropriate factual information which will minimise long-term
difficulties;
·
in the
medium term, where mothers are arrested and standing trial, the children and caregivers
need support in dealing with the upheavals in their lives, and be prepared for
the possibility of a prison sentence. They also play a vital role in minimising
the negative psychological/emotional, behavioural and physical impact upon
children;
·
where
a mother is sentenced to a prison term, the appointment of new guardians should
be done quickly, ensuring the child's best interest is always considered. Where
children are old enough, their wishes about who takes care of them must be
respected and taken into account as far as possible. Social workers need to
assist caregivers (especially those of the older- and younger generation, who
are not equipped to care for traumatised children) with the period of
adjustment. They need to assist caregivers to understand and cope with
anticipated psychological and behavioural physical impact of a mother's
imprisonment, and so better cater for children's needs. Social workers could
also assist children to adjust if placed in new schools, and help teachers
understand the child's situation;
·
the
children need to be monitored at intervals to ensure they are not exposed to
further abuse. Social workers need to be available to help families cope with
the evolving pattern of the children's needs in relation to a mother's
long-term imprisonment.
Many
state employees come into contact with children who are affected by their
parent's imprisonment, and who experience abuse in the home. We have spoken
extensively of social workers' role. However, we must also consider teachers,
police and, to a lesser extent, magistrates, as having a fundamental role to
play in ensuring the welfare of these children.
These
children are likely to display their trauma through being disruptive,
aggressive, and/or unable to concentrate in class. Teachers are bound to be at
the receiving end of this. They are instrumental in detecting possible signs of
a child in distress because of abuse, or because of emotional stress related to
their mother's imprisonment. Teachers should be given information about,
and trained to deal compassionately and effectively with the impact the
imprisonment of a parent, as well as the effects of abuse or witnessing
domestic violence has on a learner. The Child Care Amendment Act of 1996 says
teachers have a duty to report any suspected abuse of children. The Department
of Education needs to make teachers aware of this obligation, and provide
support and guidelines for teachers. This will be an important way of detecting
and intervening earlier in domestic violence.
Police
should understand what impact their presence can have on children who have
experienced multiple trauma such as the death of a parent, and the subsequent
arrest of another. Where possible police should ensure that a parent is
arrested under child- friendly conditions. Children should not have to witness
the arrest of a parent as it leaves them deeply scarred. Police should
therefore be as unobtrusive as possible, without flashing lights, sirens, and
handcuffs. This will spare children some anxiety and panic. If an arrest is
imminent, the police should liase with the Department of Social Development to
have a social worker present. Where the arrest will leave children without a
caregiver, they need to be appropriately assisted and looked after immediately.
Magistrates
should be alerted to the possibility of children's interests being compromised
by conflicting family alliances. Where children's guardianship is being decided
the court should consider appointing children with legal representation to
ensure that their interests are safeguarded, and their wishes taken into
account.
Further
investigation into the links between violence against women in the home and
child abuse is essential in order to guide policy and service provision.
Specifically, the impact of spousal murder on children in South Africa requires
attention.
1 All the
names in this true story have been changed.
2 This
work involves an advocacy campaign for the women, called the Justice for Women
Campaign. The campaign seeks to bring the unique circumstances of these women
to the attention of both government and civil society to ensure that the
conviction and sentencing of women who kill their abusive partners is
responsive to their very particular circumstances.
3 Both
Kelly (1997) and Morley and Mullender (1997) assert strongly that the merits of
the cycle of violence theory (or the intergenerational transmission of violence
hypothesis) have been seriously overstated in the literature. The theory needs
extensive further research, and it is unlikely that we will ever confidently be
able to say that children who witness violence will definitely become violent
themselves once backed up by reliable research findings.
4 It must
be noted that Hendriks et al (1993) do have some misgivings about the ability
of any parent who has killed their partner from then being able to provide
adequate emotional care to children in the long-term (see page 101).
5 As at 31
March 2001. This figure comprises 2 719 sentenced prisoners and 1 067
unsentenced prisoners. Excluded from this number are 484 female juvenile
prisoners, with 233 sentenced and 251 unsentenced prisoners respectively.
6 The
Howard League for Penal Reform is a non-governmental organisation in Britain.
The League lobbies for changes in the penal system with specific reference to
prisoners, especially women and prisoners of colour. One of the League's key
achievements, together with Save the Children Fund, was facilitating a regular
whole-day visit in a child friendly environment for children whose mothers were
imprisoned in Holloway Prison. Many prisons in Britain then took up this
initiative.
7 Personal
communication, Mr Groenewald, head of social work department at the
Johannesburg Central Prison, 29/10/2001.
8 In all
cases in our study the 'mother' is the biological mother of the children, and
is the woman who has been imprisoned for killing her partner. 'Father' is used
to denote the man who was abusive and who was killed by the women. In most
cases it also refers to the children's biological father. Please note that the
'father' is not the biological parent of four of the children.
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Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation