Beyond Condemnation: Poverty, Alcohol and Childhood Substance Exposure in SA

The unfortunate incident in Westbury is not an isolated incident where we are seeing children exposed to illicit drugs and harmful behaviour. However we would be short sighted not to see the issue within the broader context of social decay in many of our communities. Poverty, lack of economic opportunities, rising crime, gender based violence and social exclusion are just some of the contributing factors towards the growing substance use challenges in the area.

An image from the social media post. 

Children are being exposed from a younger age and substance use is being normalised within many of our vulnerable communities. It is however important to hold front and centre in our mind, that not every mother who uses drugs is neglectful or practicing harmful behaviours around her children. There are many mothers caught up in the cycle of substance dependence who remain dedicated, committed mothers who’s childrens needs are put ahead of their own.

​We also need to keep in mind that although legalised, the overall harms of alcohol use and alcohol prevelace in South African society far exceed that of substance use where children are concerned. (South Africa currently has a Foetal Alcohol spectru disorder rate of approx. 111 per 1000)And it is in fact largely through bias and stigma that we shine such a strong spotlight on this mother asking her child to light her pipe and inadvertently smoke from it – yet we turn a blind eye to children being asked to open bottles of beers and worse yet, we have social acceptability of young children drinking with adults – sipping from beers and wine glasses around the table  - engaging in so called Traditional practices.

​The Western Cape province of South Africa has some of the highest rates of Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD) in the world. Specifically, rates of FASD in some communities in the Western Cape have been reported as high as 310 per 1,000 live births, or 31.1%. In the Western and Northern Cape, between 5% and 10% of children entering school have FAS.
Yet the media and press are up in arms when we see one young 4 year old boy lighting a pipe. Whilst I am not condoning this behaviour, it is important that we don’t lose sight of the context and the far greater mitigating and confounding problems within our society.