|
Home hit by 2nd abuse claim
17/06/2008 13:37 - (SA)
Verashni Pillay
Click here to watch News24's report on this issue.
Note: This report features sound.
East London - A couple accused of abusing children at a foster care home are insisting they are innocent, ahead of their appearance in the East London Magistrates' Court in July.
Jennifer and Kenneth van der Merwe, who were caretakers of the House on the Rock (HoR) Children's Home in East London, have been at the centre of allegations of abuse and child pornography.
The controversial case, which was featured on investigative programme 3rd Degree, first came to light in October last year when a volunteer at the home went public with allegations of abuse by staff.
Four month investigation
That triggered a four-month-long investigation into the conditions at House on the Rock by a group of concerned East London residents, ex-volunteers, former staff members and some of the parents whose children live in the home, according to East London's Daily Dispatch, which has been followed the case.
Volunteers, including several from Germany, claimed at a press conference in February that children were given rotten food and had no access to clean water.
They were also allegedly assaulted, given overdoses of their medicine and made to work.
"There were also allegations made that the children were sexually abusing each other in the presence of the accused," Superintendent Mtati Tana said.
Tana told News24 that the couple had handed themselves over to police on Thursday 5 June. "They are facing charges under the Child Care Act of 1983, as well as charges under the Publication Act, as they were found in possession of obscene pornographic material," said Tana.
The couple will appear in court on 14 July and have told News24 they are at the centre of a plot, and insist on their innocence.
Planted evidence?
Jennifer van der Merwe said that neither she nor her husband were present when a computer which police allege contained adult and child pornography was seized from their home. She believes the pornography was planted.
The couple cared for about 60 orphaned, abandoned and HIV positive children at the home, which was a favoured charity for local businesses.
The Department of Social Development filed an application in the Grahamstown High Court in January seeking to have the Van der Merwes removed, replacing them with Stuart Ralph, director of East London Child and Youth Centre (ELCYC). He received R300 000 from the Eastern Cape Department of Social Development to merge his youth centre with HoR, according to the Daily Dispatch.
In the latest twist for the beleaguered home, Ralph has been accused of "farming" out children from the home to township women, and making a profit in the process.
The women in question claimed in a Dispatch report on Friday that Ralph also wanted to place sexually abused children back into communities where they had been abused .
But Ralph refuted the women's claims, saying he had placed the children, some as young as 18 months, with the mothers as part of a "re-integration" programme.
'Devastated'
Jennifer van der Merwe told News24 she heard the news early on Friday morning and was "devastated".
"We are so concerned about the children who are there now," she said.
While welfare officials have promised to investigate the new allegations, Van der Merwe said she believed that social development shouldn't be allowed to investigate "their own mess".
The couple have left East London in the wake of the controversy and are hoping to be reinstated in the home.
Watch News24's video which investigates the Social Development Department's role in the saga, as well as allegations that the Van der Merwes prohibited the children from speaking Xhosa.
- News24
|
News
