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Protect breastfeeding – A shared responsibility

05 August 2021 | Story Dr Chantell Witten | Photo Supplied

Opinion article by Dr Chantell Witten, Division of Health Professions Education, University of the Free State.

World Breastfeeding Week is celebrated every year from 1-7 August. In South Africa, it coincides with Women’s Month and gives us the opportunity to reflect on how far we have come and how far we still have to go to achieve gender equity in different spheres of life. Even more reason for us in the academic sphere to stop and think about the areas of support that may still need attention and effort to correct.

In the context of protecting breastfeeding this would speak to the Code of Good Conduct in the Labour Act which affords pregnant and breastfeeding women protection and support. In extreme cases it means protection from exposure to hazardous substances, but in the general setting of the work environment this relates to workplace support for a private and safe place to express breastmilk. One institution made headlines when a staff member was secretly videoed while she was expressing breastmilk. What is also needed is to put in place a policy that guides on how university property such as a fridge may or may not be used to store expressed breastmilk, or how to deal with a manager who insists on holding meetings in a woman’s scheduled milk-expressing time slots. The law may indicate that you are entitled to two 30-minute time slots to express but it is quite another issue to get your colleagues to accommodate or respect your biological needs.

Protecting breastfeeding

Besides the protection of employees, the government in its commitment to improve child health and nutrition has committed to protect breastfeeding from the undue influence of the infant-formula industry by implementing the recommendations of the International Code for the Marketing of Breastmilk Substitutes. South Africa approved the Regulations Relating to Foodstuff for Infants and Young Children (R991) to control the marketing and promotion of infant formula by limiting how the product may be marketed and how the industry may engage with the public and child health and development professionals, in particular.

While many are aware of the prohibition to advertise or to promote and distribute free or incentivised sales of infant formula, many may not be aware of the limitations placed on academics and researchers. The academic and research fraternity has had a long and conflicted relationship and history with the infant-formula industry. Many departments and individual researchers have received funding, conference sponsorship and gifts from the infant-formula industry. In the early 2000s at the height of the HIV epidemic, the Department of Health recommended that women living with HIV should not breastfeed and instead provided six months of free formula milk, inadvertently implying that health professionals approved of infant formula. While the national Department of Health has since stopped the distribution of free infant formula through the programme for the prevention of mother-to-child transmission of HIV (PMTCT) from 2011, many health professionals trained in the early years continue giving mixed messages to mothers and display limited skills to promote and support breastfeeding.

So how do we protect breastfeeding in the academic setting?

As more women enter academia, managers and the institutional leadership need to be cognisant and purposeful in developing a breastfeeding culture by granting women the protections afforded them by the Labour Law. Furthermore, in all spheres of academia and research, and as an institution, we need to guard against conflict of interest and conflicted relationships with the infant-formula industry. We need to do due diligence by raising the awareness of R991. All child health and development professionals should be acquainted with R991 through their curricula, and we should individually and collectively be accountable in our conduct to protect, promote and support breastfeeding as a human right, an investment in health and development, and for a sustainable future. There can be no greater dividend than to invest in optimal nutrition for infants and our children. They are the future.

News Archive

CR Swart Memorial Lecture: Mr Cecil le Fleur

2006-08-08

Khoe and San call for government to speed up policy dialogue with indigenous communities

Mr Cecil le Fleur, leader of the National Khoe-San Consultative Conference and member of the executive management of the National Khoe-San Council, has called for a national policy on indigenous peoples to protect the human rights and special needs of indigenous people in South Africa.

Mr Le Fleur delivered the 38th CR Swart Memorial Lecture on the Khoe and San at the University of the Free State (UFS). He commended the UFS for its serious approach to the Khoe and San and for initiating initiatives such as a research project on the Griqua in which various aspects linked to language, -culture, -history, - leadership, their role in the South African community (past and present) and the conservation of their historical cultural heritages will be covered.

“The policy dialogue with indigenous communities initiated by government in 1999 and supported by the International Labour Organisation (ILO), has been exceedingly slow, owing to political and bureaucratic problems,” said Mr Le Fleur.

According to Mr Le Fleur the slow pace is also impacting negatively on the United Nations’ efforts to expand the international standards and mechanisms for human rights so as to include the special needs of indigenous peoples.

“The successful adoption of a South African policy would probably have a major impact on the human rights culture of Africa and, more specifically, on the UN system,” he said.

“South Africa has a powerful moral authority internationally and is willing to use this authority in multilateral forums. At this stage, however, South Africa’s Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) may not take an official position on UN instruments and declarations pertaining to indigenous issues, until the Cabinet has resolved its own domestic policy position,” he said.

According to Mr le Fleur it therefore came as a great surprise when the DFA brought out a positive vote in the UN for the adoption of the "Draft Declaration on the Rights of indigenous Peoples" in June this year, even before the completion of the policy process.

Policy consolidation in South Africa is the primary key to creating a new policy climate in Africa in order to protect the rights of indigenous peoples. “The existing constitution of the Republic of South Africa is one of the most liberal on the continent, and embraces the concept of redress of past discrimination. It already includes a clause (Section 6) making provision for the protection of language rights for Khoe and San peoples - the fist peoples of southern Africa,” he said.

“If South Africa can effectively integrate this ‘third generation’ of collective rights within an existing democratic constitution, this will send a clear message to Africa and the world that indigenous rights are a necessary component of human and civil rights in modern democracies,” he said.

Mr Le Fleur proposed an institutional framework based on set principles that would satisfy the needs and aspirations of the Griqua and other first indigenous peoples in South Africa. “The proposed framework was based on the notion of vulnerability as a result of colonialism and apartheid, which stripped us of our indigenous identity, cultural identity and pride as people. This injustice can hardly be addressed within the existing mechanisms provided by the current text of the Constitution,” he said.

Mr Le Fleur also proposed that the principles of unique first-nation status, as recognised in international law, should be applied in the construction of the framework of the constitutional accommodation for the Khoe and San.

Mr Le Fleur further proposed that the Khoe and San’s indigenous status in constitutional terms must be separate from the constitutional acknowledgement of their status as a cultural community, as envisaged in sections 185 and 186 of the Constitution of 1996.

According to Mr Le Fleur, the suggested mechanism should make provision for structures such as:

A statutory representative council for First Indigenous Peoples of South Africa at a national level;
a separate Joint Standing Committee on Indigenous and Traditional Affairs, in both the National Assembly and the National Council of Provinces on which the Khoe and San can be represented;
a representative structure for the Khoe and San in the legislature of each relevant province; and
ex officio membership in the relevant structures of local government.

Media release
Issued by: Lacea Loader
Media Representative
Tel: (051) 401-2584
Cell: 083 645 2454
E-mail: loaderl.stg@mail.uovs.ac.za
24 August 2006

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