Tobile is 10 years old. She lives in an inner-city informal settlement (squatter camp) in a slum area of Johannesburg. There are three hundred people living in 70 shacks on an urban site that was once a house and a garden. The house is still there . It houses 5 families and is the access point serving the whole settlement for water and a toilet. So small is the site that the shacks, really no more than single rooms, are built one up against the other. To move between them means walking single file and sometimes sideways on. It's easy to get lost in there if you don't know your way about
Tobile often comes to the motor-gate of my house. "Mr Ba !...........Mr Ba......!" she calls most frequently to ask for food. Sometimes just to say hello.
This time the call was more urgent.." MR BA !.....MR BA !....."
This time it was not a simple request for food.
'Mr Ba...... Mr Ba.......tell a social worker to come and TAKE ME NOW!!"
She wanted to talk and she was crying. " I have nowhere to stay. The man I was staying with has gone to Soweto with that other girl"
Her mother frequently leaves Tobile in the settlement with anyone who will take her when she is herself incapacitated by alcohol, has a boyfriend moved in, or is looking for work. The man she was talking about was a man in his 70's and there was a clear picture of Tobile at risk , if not being sexually abused.
So that is what I did. I called the Provincial Offices and told Tobile's story. " It's a city problem" they said.
I called the City Offices.
Weeks past.
One night a fire broke out in the settlement. The risk of fire there was huge and happened at least twice a year, but this time it was worse than usual The whole settlement went up in flames.Three people died. They just could not get out of the shacks or escape the maze between them. White/grey ash was everywhere, in mounds and thinly spread by the wind, everywhere.
When I got there , three better dressed women were standing looking into the smouldering site. Shack dwellers hung around in groups in the street.
" I ned a Social Worker" I said.
" We are social workers" said the oldest......." She is a student social worker " pointing to the youngest who looked grey like the ash.
" These people need Blankets and food" I said. We need City Emergency Services. Tents, .. .
" You have to ask the nearest fire station . They are the contact persons for City Emergency Services. We have brought mealie meal and beans."
I pulled Tobile from a group in the street.
"Please", I said, " talk to this little girl. She will tell you. She needs a Place of Safety. She needs protection, now. Please speak to her. I have never had a child ask to be removed ever before. Please, hear her story."
" Where's the mother?" said the oldest.
I brought forward the mother. She had another small child on her hip and breast fed while she faced the worker. "I cant do anything " she said unless I have an ID Book or some form of identity.
" Where is the child's ID? " she said to Ma-Tobile.
The young student worker hung back and touched Tobile on her shoulder.
The mother in silence lifted her arm, spread her fingers, then very slowly swept her outstretched hand in an arc from left to right toward the piles of smouldering timber and twisted galvanized iron sheets. Then she walked back to the group in the street.
Tobile followed.
(This is the real story behind an article written I wrote, previously published in the NACCW journal: Child and Youth Care Volume 20 No4 April 2002. Some material was taken from it. )
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