Hundreds of babies are abandoned every year in South Africa.
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South Africa does not provide safe alternatives for desperate mothers. Babies are abandoned in places such as open fields, dustbins and pit latrines.
Daily life in some parts of Central America is so fearsome for parents and children that crossing Mexico and risking detention in the U.S. seems less fearsome.
Reuters/Edgard Garrido
Central American youth are 10 times more likely to be murdered than children in the US. Child homicides in Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador are rising even as other violence declines.
In South Africa, many child homicides are the result of children being abandoned.
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The high rate of child homicides in South Africa shows that reproductive, mental health and social services are failing to help vulnerable mothers.