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Baby savers save lives amid rise in infant abandonment in SA

Baby savers save lives amid rise in infant abandonment in SA
BabySaver installed in Witbank (eMalahleni), Mpumalanga. (Photo: Door of Hope and Baby Savers SA)
Kristin Engel
By Kristin Engel
9 Jun 2025
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As infant abandonment continues to rise in South Africa, a network of baby savers offers desperate mothers a safe, anonymous alternative.

In South Africa, where child abandonment remains a silent crisis, its victims often unseen and unheard, there is a quiet network of everyday heroes determined to change the story.

It’s called Baby Savers South Africa, a coalition of concerned citizens and organisations providing desperate parents with a safe, anonymous and dignified way to relinquish their babies in cases where keeping them seems impossible.

These organisations and individuals provide an alternative to baby abandonment, offering a safe haven for newborns in crisis.

A baby saver box is a secure, designated place where a parent, often a desperate or vulnerable mother, can safely and anonymously leave a newborn. They are typically found outside hospitals, clinics or places of safety such as crisis pregnancy centres.

A baby saver box is not meant to promote abandonment, but instead provides a safe, last-resort alternative.

Speaking to Daily Maverick, Nadene Grabham, operations director of Door of Hope and co-founder of Baby Savers South Africa, said the country lacked safe-haven laws, which in other countries allowed parents to legally and anonymously leave a baby at a designated site such as a hospital or police station without fear of prosecution.

baby savers The baby Saver installed at Philisa Abafazi Bethu SA in Lavender Hill, Cape Town. (Photo: Kristin Engel)



With seemingly no other choices, desperation can lead to tragedy. Sandy Immelman, founder of Helderberg Baby Saver, said: “Only a third of abandoned babies survive. The others are found too late, left in rivers, dumpsters or fields.”

In an interview with Daily Maverick, Immelman explained how she came to know this heartbreak first-hand and how Helderberg Baby Saver was established. In 2014, a newborn, Baby Amber, was discovered dumped next to the river in Somerset West, covered in ants and barely alive.

“She was cold already and had ants all over her. The mother had obviously managed to give birth all by herself and chewed through the cord and left the baby. And a vagrant carried the baby up to the road and flagged down a police car,” said Immelman.

Judith Cross of the Somerset West Neighbourhood Watch was the first responder. A second baby was discovered a week later in the Somerset West CBD, prompting Immelman to learn about existing baby saver boxes and the critical need for their safe, anonymous and accessible placement. This led to the launch of Helderberg Baby Saver in August 2014.

Philisa Abafazi Bethu South Africa in Lavender Hill, Cape Town (Photo: Kristin Engel)



Chevonne Van Der Schyff, a facilitator at Philisa Abafazi Bethu in Lavender Hill. (Photo: Kristin Engel)



Immelman and Cross partnered with Choices, an organisation supporting crisis pregnancies in the Helderberg area, and received approval to install the baby saver box in their facility.

“If a woman is that desperate, there has to be another option,” said Immelman. Today, thanks to that resolve, 14 babies have been safely surrendered at this facility. Immelman said that each one represents a life saved, a future restored.

She said Baby Amber now lives overseas with a loving family. “She was named after the ambulance team that responded. From near death to a full life – that’s the power of this work.” Contrary to common assumptions, it isn’t always teenagers or addicts who abandon their babies.

“It’s terrified women,” Immelman said.

An infant who arrived via a baby saver at Door of Hope. (Photo: Door of Hope and Baby Savers SA)



A baby saver manufactured in Cape Town by Door of Hope and Baby Savers SA. (Photo: Door of Hope and Baby Savers SA)


The genesis of Baby Savers SA


Grabham said the first modern-day baby saver box was installed at Door of Hope in Berea, Johannesburg, in April 1999. Since then, 291 babies have been taken in through this box and more than 1,900 have come through Door of Hope’s doors.

More than 10 years later, Helderberg Baby Saver and New BeginningZ were the next to install baby saver boxes in South Africa. There are more than 30 operational baby saver boxes in South Africa.

The organisations behind them are all seeking to change the narrative from “abandonment” to “safe relinquishment”, ensuring that neither the parent nor the child is criminalised for a decision born of profound desperation. The crisis of baby abandonment in South Africa is severe, with thousands of cases reported annually.

Lucinda Evans, a human rights activist and director of the intersectional gender-based violence organisation Philisa Abafazi Bethu, where another baby saver box is located, articulated the underlying societal issues that lead to such desperate acts – high rates of rape, poverty preventing access to safe termination and a systemic failure of the state to provide adequate support for mothers and children.

A baby saver installed in Witbank (eMalahleni), Mpumalanga. (Photo: Door of Hope and Baby Savers SA)


Protocol and protection


Immelman explained how baby savers operate and the protocols to ensure the safety and wellbeing of every child.

When a baby is placed in a saver the door locks automatically, triggering an alarm that alerts a security company. Security officers are dispatched immediately to ensure the safety of responders, regardless of the time of day or night.

An ambulance is also sent and responders are notified to arrive within minutes. Once the baby is retrieved by the ambulance crew and checked, social workers take over, partnering with child protection and adoption agencies such as Wandisa.

The court is advised and temporary safe care is found. Then there’s a waiting period that involves advertising in case a parent or a family member wants to come forward. If nothing happens during that time, then the baby would be up for adoption.

In 2022, Dr Whitney Rosenberg, lecturer and co-founder of Baby Savers SA, told the Portfolio Committee on Social Development that South Africa urgently needs legislation permitting baby savers.

She said that in 2015, 5.9 million infants in South Africa died before their fifth birthday, and among the major causes of these deaths was infant abandonment.

In 2020, Rosenberg earned her PhD from the University of Johannesburg for her five-year study titled The Legal Regulation of Infant Abandonment in South Africa, which identified a globally used solution to unsafe infant abandonment and included a comprehensive legal analysis of baby savers from their origin.

Rosenberg explored the constitutional principles underlying these approaches and how they could be applied within the South African legal framework. Based on this work, she and Grabham drafted a law proposal that was presented to Parliament to legalise safe relinquishment of a baby through a baby saver.

Operating in a legal grey area


Despite its life-saving work, Baby Savers SA faces significant adversity from the Department of Social Development (DSD), according to the group.

Evans criticised the DSD for actively trying to close baby savers, particularly in Gauteng, despite the glaring issue of baby dumping in South Africa. “Why would the national government… close one of the safest relinquishing options that there are? Because the state doesn’t give us any options when it comes to children,” she said.

Grabham described the legal battle in an interview with Daily Maverick.

After a seemingly positive meeting with the DSD in late 2023, in which collaboration on regulating baby savers was discussed, the DSD in Gauteng abruptly declared them illegal, demanding their immediate closure.

Door of Hope vehemently refused, citing their track record of saving hundreds of lives. This, Grabham said, forced Door of Hope and Baby Savers SA to seek an interdict to remain operational and, more broadly, to legally recognise safe relinquishment and the use of baby savers as non-criminal acts.

A glimmer of hope


The work of Baby Savers South Africa extends beyond the physical act of rescuing infants. Organisations such as Philisa Abafazi Bethu, which was founded by Evans and where Chevonne van der Schyff serves as a youth and after-school facilitator, address the deep-rooted trauma experienced by children in volatile areas such as Lavender Hill, Hillview, Montague Village and Steenberg in Cape Town.

These children often come from households impacted by poverty, neglect and parental drug addiction, frequently experiencing various forms of abuse. Philisa Abafazi Bethu provides a safe space, free meals and crucial mental health support through art therapy and psychological counselling, helping children to overcome fear, speak out and develop coping mechanisms.

The centre’s child protection programme was created in response to kidnappings, rapes and killings in the community.

“We’ve had more than 52 teenagers shot dead in the past year alone,” said Van der Schyff. “Many of our kids can’t even attend our programmes because of the constant shootings.”

This is the context in which baby savers operate. Not isolated from the wider child protection crisis, but woven into it and standing as sentinels where no other safety net exists. DM




This story first appeared in our weekly Daily Maverick 168 newspaper, which is available countrywide for R35.

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