Durban, 05 September, 2020 / 11:16 pm (ACI Africa).
The leadership of the Justice and Peace Commission (JPC) of South Africa’s Durban Archdiocese has, in a research report, highlighted the plight of child-headed households (CHHs) in the Church’s jurisdiction.
In the report, JPC officials note, in reference to CHHs, that their “composition and structure clearly make them vulnerable.”
“The main aspects that came out strongly include child headed families’ challenges such as perpetual bereavement, single mothers’ struggles to cope with the current situation, neglect, discrimination and isolation amongst families among other issues,” JPC Durban officials say in the report published Friday, September 4.
In the report dated August 28, one of the families featured is that of Nosipho (not real name) and her two siblings, who have been orphaned for more than three years, leaving them “in a difficult position.”
“Our father used to come home once around Christmas holidays. He would buy us some food, which lasts about two weeks, the time he spends with us. Then he leaves us again,” Nosipho says in the report and adds in reference to their dad, ''We finish the last bites of the food he bought by the time he goes away and starve again for the whole year."