Government has reiterated that it has amended disaster regulations so that the list of essential goods now includes ‘products for the care of babies and toddlers’ during the coronavirus.

However, NGOs say this does not solve the problem that mothers are unable to buy clothes for their newborn babies, notes Mail & Guardian legal writer Franny Rabkin.

The government’s letter came in response to an urgent application made to the Constitutional Court for an order declaring that the directives governing the lockdown are unconstitutional because they do not protect newborn babies whose mothers are unable to buy clothes for them.

‘If this court does not intervene on an urgent basis, the newborn babies born during the lockdown or a few days or hours before the lockdown may be left without clothes to keep their bodies warm,’ said the Tebeila Institute of Leadership, Education, Governance and Training and the African Institute for Human Rights and Constitutional Litigation.

A letter from the State Attorney on behalf of President Cyril Ramaphosa said the NGOs did not seem to be aware that the regulations were amended.

The National Joint Operational and Intelligence Structure was also in the process of considering clarifying ‘the types of non-consumable goods which parents may obtain for infants,’ said the letter, according to the M&G report.

‘In the circumstances we are of the view that your clients’ application is unnecessary and we invite your clients to withdraw the application,’ said the letter.

But in a replying letter, the organisations attorneys, Mampa & Machethe Attorneys, said the problem was that retail shops in the rural areas selling baby clothes were closed.

‘For example: In Bopedi Shopping Centre at Ga-Nkwana, Sekhukhune District, Limpopo Province, the shops such as Jet Stores, Pep Stores, Ackermans, Express Stores and Dunns, which sell clothes, blankets, towels, baby beds, and other baby accessories for newborn babies remain closed,’ said the letter.

The organisations proposed that the President ‘make a public announcement … that retail shops and businesses selling clothes, blankets, towels, baby beds, and other baby accessories for new born babies shall be open from 8 April 2020’.

Full Mail & Guardian report