Lockdown blues – parents and kids reunited

A mother who was reunited with her two young children on Wednesday, after the national lockdown had separated them for three weeks, has described their time apart as “hell”.

“It was the hardest thing I’ve ever had to endure and the biggest test of my faith,” she told The Citizen. “My children equally suffered and just refused to accept this unexpected separation.”

Their reunion was made possible after Social Development Minister Lindiwe Zulu on Tuesday night lifted the ban on moving children between divorced or separated parents during the lockdown.

The mother – who, as a party to divorce proceedings, cannot be named – had last seen her children on 15 March.

“I think last week was the hardest week. I couldn’t bring myself to do anything,” she said, her voice heavy with emotion.

She struggled to find the words to describe the joy of finally getting to see her children again,

“It was an incredible feeling being reunited,” she said. “I was ecstatic, relieved and overwhelmed with joy and peace.”

Last week, Zulu published a set of lockdown directives in terms of which the movement of children during the lockdown was prohibited.

On Tuesday night, however, she published an amendment in terms of which children could now be moved between their respective parents over this period, subject to a court order being in place or “where a parental responsibilities and rights agreement or parenting plan, registered with the family advocate, is in existence”.

In addition, they could only be moved to households where “there is no person who is known to have come into contact with, or is reasonably suspected to have come into contact with, a person known to have contracted, or reasonably suspected to have contracted, Covid-19”.

Attorney and chairperson of the Gauteng Family Law Forum Beverley Clark says the amendment is an improvement, but explained there is still a large portion of the population that is not covered because the movement of children who were not the subject of formal parenting arrangements is still prohibited.

“And many, many people do not have formal arrangements but they cooperatively and happily share parenting without a court order or a formal agreement,” Clark said.

The director of Family Focused Foundation, Charl Botha, also welcomed the amendment.

He said these were uncertain times and that children were scared and needed to have contact with their parents.

But Johannesburg-based attorney Tracey Lomax raised concerns.

“I think this amendment, at this time, is not helpful,” she said. “What we had was a position which was certain when children weren’t allowed to move. It was a black and white rule … This has created more uncertainty.”

She said parents who had not had access to their children since the start of the lockdown were already beginning to demand not just that their children be handed over, but they get extra time with them.

“When parents are at loggerheads, they don’t act rationally. One of the biggest problems is that parents get angry and act on emotion,” Lomax said. “These are the kinds of parents who are not going to be able to come to an agreement, that’s why there’s a court order or a parenting plan.”

Lomax also pointed out that the new amendment did not consider that a child might be coming from a household where they had been exposed to Covid-19.

“It prohibits a child from going to a place where somebody may have Covid-19. It doesn’t say anything about the fact that they may be coming from a household where they may have been exposed to Covid-19. The child could be the carrier and it doesn’t outlaw that,” she said.

“I think there was a lot of pressure on the minister to allow movement of children but her job as minister is to be rational where parents can’t be,” Lomax said. “It’s another week. If the lockdown were to be extended, we could perhaps look at something, but essentially it’s another week.”

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