Womb fee myth totally busted

At the end of September, The Cape Argus and the Daily Sun ran a story entitled “Teenage mothers abuse state child grant”.   The article chronicles the experiences of counsellors in Cape Town’s Gugulethu township, and states that the Child Support Grant (CSG) is popularly known as “womb fee”.   One counsellor interviewed lays the blame of the increase in HIV and teenage pregnancies squarely at the door of the CSG and reported that “‘lazy’ young mothers often went on drinking sprees, bought clothing and gambled” with it.

Another counsellor’s solution to the problem?   The young girls “have to stop this insanity and get jobs”. Not long after these articles went to print, ANC President Zuma   – on the campaign trial, and probably an avid reader of either or both the Daily Sun and the Cape Argus – complained about teenage pregnancies and how young mothers leave their children with family members and “exploit” social grants.

Stories about girls falling pregnant “on purpose” and/or discarding responsibility for their children to fritter grant money away are not new in South Africa.   Indeed, complaints about teenage girls abusing the social grant system became so prevalent that the Department of Social Development commissioned the Human Sciences Research Council to investigate the matter.

The result? Some pungent myth-puncturing.

In March 2007, the Department released the research.   Unsurprisingly, and in conflict with widespread urban mythology, the researchers could find no relationship between teenage fertility and uptake of the grant.   In fact, the authors noted that teenage fertility rates started to decline when the CSG was introduced in 1998 – direct contradiction of the myths.

The truth about social grants is sadder and more complex.   Research has consistently shown their benefits in the lives of South Africa’s poor:

social grants successfully reduce poverty, increase school attendance, promote job searching and boost the amount households spend on food.

Studies homing in on the CSG itself have highlighted that it is often the only source of income to the child’s primary care-giver – and that the CSG is spent primarily on food and clothing (not on buying Lotto tickets, beer or new lipstick).

What about another widely-favoured myth, the perverse incentives teenagers have to fall pregnant? Reality suggests a check here.   Is it realistic to visualize a bevy of young girls who would calculatingly fall pregnant to access a grant currently worth R210 a month?   And this in return for what?

The risk of HIV and other STIs, plus an ever-expanding body, giving birth in a South African public sector hospital, post-natal depression, sleepless nights, dirty nappies, breastfeeding, single parenthood, spiralling costs and social scorn.   This merely to produce the live baby that would serve as step one in the application for a CSG. That for R7 a day.

Given the violence against women and the coerced sex that besets our society, not to speak of the power and legitimacy afforded violent masculinities, it is at every level more plausible to link teenage pregnancies to the lack of choice or decision-making power that many young girls (or many adult women for that matter) face when it comes to sex.

South Africa’s progressive social security system provides a lifeline to millions of South Africans.   It is a system that is easy to knock.   But it is one all South Africans should support.   Sceptical scrutiny is good, but it should rather be directed to ensuring delivery and that corruption is rooted out.   Rather than undermining the lifeline these grants provide for the most vulnerable in our society, the social safety net should be widened.   The CSG should be extended from age 14 up to 18 and a Chronic Illness Grant should be introduced.   And a Basic Income Grant – long a focus of Minister Manuel’s scepticism – should be considered.

Our Constitution guarantees everyone “the right to have access to social security, including, if they are unable to support themselves and their dependants, appropriate social assistance” within available resources. These we need to debate wisely and acutely – particularly at Treasury-level.   The benefits private jets, military arms contracts and legal costs for Jacob Zuma and others accused of misdoings should carefully be weighed up against the well-directed necessity of social grants.

Above all, dinner-table and shebeen -counter myth-making must be replaced with insightful fact.   South Africa’s social security system deserves praise – not ill-conceived disparagement.

* This article appeared in The Star.  

* Marlise Richter is from the Steve Biko Centre for Bioethics at Wits University.

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  • healthe

    Health-e News is South Africa's dedicated health news service and home to OurHealth citizen journalism. Follow us on Twitter @HealtheNews

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