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Hendrietta Bogopane-Zulu ambaye ni Naibu Waziri wa Maendeleo ya Jamii wa Afrika Kusini, amesema unywaji Pombe husababisha Madhara kwenye Ubongo wa Watoto na hivyo Wanaokunywa wakati wa Ujauzito washtakiwe kwa Unyanyasaji wa Watoto.
Akizungumza katika Kongamano la Kukuza Uelewa Kuhusu Athari za Pombe kwa Watoto, amesema Shirika la Afya Duniani (WHO) limeitaja Afrika Kusini kuwa na kiwango cha juu zaidi cha Walevi Duniani.
Kwa mujibu wa takwimu, Matumizi ya Pombe Nchini humo yameripotiwa kufikia 41.5% kwa Wanaume na 17.1% kwa Wanawake. Wakazi wa Mijini ni 33.4% na wa Vijijini 18.3%).
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Women who drink while pregnant should face criminal charges, Social Development Deputy Minister Hendrietta Bogopane-Zulu has said.
She was speaking at an event to raise awareness on fetal alcohol spectrum disorders (FASD) in Ndwedwe, Kwa-Zulu Natal, on Tuesday.
Bogopane-Zulu handed over a stimulation room to the Esidumbini Community Care Centre to assist with the therapy for children with FASD and other disabilities by using various equipment to improve movement and brain function.
The event came ahead of the International FASD Awareness Day on Saturday.
FASD is among the leading sources of non-genetic developmental and intellectual disability globally, and is usually associated with primary and secondary disabilities, said Bogopane-Zulu
She added that the World Health Organisation had identified South Africa as having the highest reported prevalence of FASD globally.
She also called for women who drink while pregnant, resulting in children with FASD, to be criminally charged.
She said:
Women who drink alcohol while pregnant must be charged for child abuse.
"The sad thing is that these women have these children with FASD and then they leave them with the elderly to take care of them.
"South Africans have an unhealthy relationship with alcohol, where binge drinking has become the norm amongst youngsters," Bogopane-Zulu said.
She added that heavy drinking brings the risk of "damaging their [unborn babies'] brains".
The deputy minister is expected to visit the Ikhwezi Lokusa Rehabilitation Centre in Mthatha, Eastern Cape, on Wednesday as part of the FASD awareness campaign.
However, FADS awareness champion Vivien Lourens says the subject of women who drink while pregnant is "very difficult" to broach.
"I don't think mothers would knowingly give their children FADS," she said.
Lourens and her husband Peter adopted a baby girl who has FADS and later started their own NGO, the Fetal Alcohol Syndrome Information Centre (FASIC), which they run from their home in Cape Town.
Their daughter is now 27 years old.
According to Lourens, many women don't know they are pregnant and continue drinking until they find out that they are.
For others, she said, drinking is a way of life and they don't even think about the harm they're causing their unborn children. Some of these women stop drinking once they find out that they are pregnant.
"However, their partners are not supportive. They would convince them to drink with them or tell them not to act funny and be social," she said.
With regards to Bogopane-Zulu's suggestion that mothers who drink while pregnant be criminally charged, Lourens said: "Even if you would like them to be punished, they already have a child with disabilities that they have to take care of.
"Nine out of 10 times, that child will [go on to become] a criminal because the parents don't know how to take care of that child.
"Then, if you put the mother in prison, who will take care of that child? The child will probably end up in the system, and that is a never-ending cycle."
24 NEWS
