Keltria
02-01-2005, 02:56 PM
Mentally ill children dumped and forgotten
Zelda Venter
February 01 2005 at 07:46AM
He is 17 with a mental age of 12. He was arrested for stealing a tube of Pringle crisps, locked in police cells and later sent to the Dyambu place of safety.
But instead of receiving help, he was put in a cage. Sodomised. He was transferred to Weskoppies where it appears he was drugged.
This is where Ann Skelton of the Centre for Child Law found him dressed in tatty pyjamas, his speech slurry and clearly in need of help.
The centre has taken on this teenager's case and those of a number of other mentally ill "forgotten" children who have been failed by the judicial system and all but abandoned by their families.
In one case, a grandmother charged her grandchild with an offence to have him incarcerated as the family could not cope with him.
There is no suitable place in South Africa to detain children like this and nobody to properly care for them. So they are sent by courts to a place of safety where they may be sedated and restrained in a bid to deal with them.
Children could drift through the criminal justice system for months and even years on petty charges because their families cannot accept their mental illness.
Mentally ill children were kept in a fenced-off area referred to as the "airlock" at Dyambu place of safety in Krugersdorp, according to Pretoria advocate Chris Woodrow, who has been appointed by the Pretoria High Court to act as curator for eight children, with a further seven now added to his case load.
The airlock was about 20m2 and other children housed at the institution were able to look through bars at the children with psychiatric problems, he said.
His shocking revelations were made in the Pretoria High Court during an application by the Centre for Child Law to take on the plight of these forgotten children.
In a report to the court, Woodrow said when he started his investigation, he soon realised how big the need was.
Sterkfontein Psychiatric Hospital, the type of institution equipped to deal with these cases, only catered for adults so children referred by the courts for mental observation end up at Dyambu and similar places.
Because they were not equipped to look after mentally handicapped criminals, they resorted to tactics such as placing children in confined areas or tying them to their beds.
Many children, he said, end up being raped or sodomised and faced becoming HIV-positive.
While some young patients were drugged, others did not receive any medication at all. State hospitals refused to pay for the medication of detained children and Dyambu had to pay from its own funds, Woodrow said.
These children needed to be observed by qualified staff over a period of time to ascertain whether they were fit to stand trial.
"The opinion of all professionals interviewed is that Sterkfontein needs a child and adolescent section as a matter of urgency," Woodrow told the Pretoria High Court. Sterkfontein was working on this but it was not known when such a facility would open.
He said the 17-year-old boy told how he had been locked up in a police cell after his arrest. On arrival at Weskoppies he was given two injections but he does not recall seeing a doctor.
Through the efforts of Skelton and the Centre for Child Law, the teenager has been removed from Weskoppies and is back at Dyambu while he awaits a children's court inquiry to determine his fate.
Another child was charged by his own grandmother for intimidation because she could not cope with him and got no support from the community.
He has been declared a State President's patient by the court.
He could not be sent back to Dyambu and Sterkfontein declined to admit him as they did not have a section for children. Weskoppies also refused to take him, "because he lived outside their geographical area", Woodrow told the High Court.
He is now being treated at Sterkfontein as an outpatient but lives with the same grandmother who had him arrested.
Woodrow said it was clear that the rights of children like these were being violated and he was to serve reports on the relevant government departments asking for an explanation of what they were doing for these children. He called on the department of justice to educate magistrates not to "dump" such children in unsuitable facilities. - High Court Reporter.
Zelda Venter
February 01 2005 at 07:46AM
He is 17 with a mental age of 12. He was arrested for stealing a tube of Pringle crisps, locked in police cells and later sent to the Dyambu place of safety.
But instead of receiving help, he was put in a cage. Sodomised. He was transferred to Weskoppies where it appears he was drugged.
This is where Ann Skelton of the Centre for Child Law found him dressed in tatty pyjamas, his speech slurry and clearly in need of help.
The centre has taken on this teenager's case and those of a number of other mentally ill "forgotten" children who have been failed by the judicial system and all but abandoned by their families.
In one case, a grandmother charged her grandchild with an offence to have him incarcerated as the family could not cope with him.
There is no suitable place in South Africa to detain children like this and nobody to properly care for them. So they are sent by courts to a place of safety where they may be sedated and restrained in a bid to deal with them.
Children could drift through the criminal justice system for months and even years on petty charges because their families cannot accept their mental illness.
Mentally ill children were kept in a fenced-off area referred to as the "airlock" at Dyambu place of safety in Krugersdorp, according to Pretoria advocate Chris Woodrow, who has been appointed by the Pretoria High Court to act as curator for eight children, with a further seven now added to his case load.
The airlock was about 20m2 and other children housed at the institution were able to look through bars at the children with psychiatric problems, he said.
His shocking revelations were made in the Pretoria High Court during an application by the Centre for Child Law to take on the plight of these forgotten children.
In a report to the court, Woodrow said when he started his investigation, he soon realised how big the need was.
Sterkfontein Psychiatric Hospital, the type of institution equipped to deal with these cases, only catered for adults so children referred by the courts for mental observation end up at Dyambu and similar places.
Because they were not equipped to look after mentally handicapped criminals, they resorted to tactics such as placing children in confined areas or tying them to their beds.
Many children, he said, end up being raped or sodomised and faced becoming HIV-positive.
While some young patients were drugged, others did not receive any medication at all. State hospitals refused to pay for the medication of detained children and Dyambu had to pay from its own funds, Woodrow said.
These children needed to be observed by qualified staff over a period of time to ascertain whether they were fit to stand trial.
"The opinion of all professionals interviewed is that Sterkfontein needs a child and adolescent section as a matter of urgency," Woodrow told the Pretoria High Court. Sterkfontein was working on this but it was not known when such a facility would open.
He said the 17-year-old boy told how he had been locked up in a police cell after his arrest. On arrival at Weskoppies he was given two injections but he does not recall seeing a doctor.
Through the efforts of Skelton and the Centre for Child Law, the teenager has been removed from Weskoppies and is back at Dyambu while he awaits a children's court inquiry to determine his fate.
Another child was charged by his own grandmother for intimidation because she could not cope with him and got no support from the community.
He has been declared a State President's patient by the court.
He could not be sent back to Dyambu and Sterkfontein declined to admit him as they did not have a section for children. Weskoppies also refused to take him, "because he lived outside their geographical area", Woodrow told the High Court.
He is now being treated at Sterkfontein as an outpatient but lives with the same grandmother who had him arrested.
Woodrow said it was clear that the rights of children like these were being violated and he was to serve reports on the relevant government departments asking for an explanation of what they were doing for these children. He called on the department of justice to educate magistrates not to "dump" such children in unsuitable facilities. - High Court Reporter.