19-05-2025
Why are so many newborns and foetuses being abandoned in landfills and velds in SA?
They were wrapped in plastic or foil or a piece of clothing, tucked inside a backpack or pulled from a burnt pile of rubbish. Those were just some of the ways the remains of newborns and foetuses were found before ending up at the Diepkloof Forensic Pathology Service in Soweto.
While discoveries like these rarely make the news, they are a regular occurrence, discovered in open velds, public toilets and landfills across South Africa.
To help figure out why, researchers from Wits University gathered data about the remains that landed up at the Diepkloof facility between 2020 and 2021 and in 2023. They hope by tracking where the remains were found and the causes of death, they will better understand why so many women are turning to desperate ways of ending their pregnancies instead of seeking out legal and safe abortions.
Abandoned remains are not just a South African problem. But studies show it is extremely rare in countries like Germany (150 cases found over 15 years) or Denmark (11 cases over 12 years). Meanwhile, research published in 2014 in the South African Medical Journal (SAMJ) found over 1,6581 cases in Mpumalanga and Gauteng alone between 2009 and 2011.
Of the 158 cases in the Diepkloof facility studied, 68 were found to be non-viable, which means they would not be able to survive outside the mother; 29 were stillborn — when a foetus dies in the womb after 20 weeks of pregnancy. In one-third of the cases, the cause of death couldn't be determined because the bodies were severely mutilated or were too badly decomposed. The researchers — Rachel Gill, Roxanne Thornton and Shakeera Holland — believe the high number of non-viable cases could be linked to illegal abortions, something backed up by the SAMJ study.
Their initial findings point to a lack of information and education about abortion and inadequate medical care, which reproductive health specialists agree are the biggest reasons women are driven to unsafe abortion providers.
In a recent episode of Bhekisisa's monthly TV programme, Health Beat, we spoke with Shakeera Holland, who heads up forensic medicine and pathology at Wits University and leads investigations of unnatural deaths across eight forensic pathology facilities in Gauteng — the busiest region in the country, which handles about 28% of all the unnatural death investigations in the country.
Mia Malan spoke with her at Soweto's forensic pathology service facilities in Diepkloof. This interview was edited for clarity.
The full Health Beat programme:
