MOTHERS addicted to nyaope are abandoning their little children to feed their addiction.

As it has been the case with teenage pregnancies over the years, the burden of raising babies of nyaope mothers has fallen on grandmothers. Grandmothers that Sowetan spoke to at Makapanstad, a village near Hammanskraal, north of Pretoria, were forced to leave their jobs to look after the children.

A 57-year-old grandmother said she has had to look after three children whose 30-year-old mother started smoking nyaope in 2008. The elderly woman now takes care of the children aged five, nine and 13 as their mother often disappears for days on end.

"Even when she is around she does not take care of her children.

"She does not know how they get to school or what they eat."

The grandmother said she had to quit her job as a domestic worker because her grandchildren needed someone to take care of them. I had no choice. If I refuse to look after them she (the mother) takes them along to the nyaope spot," she said.

The mother spends most of the day with dozens of fellow nyaope addicts in an open veld. She admitted that she raised her now five-year-old son among her addict friends but stopped taking him to the hang-out after social workers threatened to take her children away.

Another grandmother said her daughter would lock her three-year-old daughter in the house so she can go and smoke.

"I had to leave my job so I could take care of the child myself. She does not help me with anything; all she does is eat and steal from me," said the grandmother.

Another nyaope addict said: "I leave my child with neighbours or my aunt when I go to smoke. Nyaope has changed [my appearance]. I am losing weight and my complexion is darker."

A 52-year-old grandmother said she realised that her daughter-in-law, 23, was addicted to the drug when she started neglecting her child.

"The child would spend days in the same clothes. When the child's clothes were dirty she would turn them inside out. She did not even feed the child."

SAPS spokeswoman Lieutenant Sarah Lesabane said the police were aware of the nyaope venues. "Police frequent the areas. People who are found in possession of drugs are arrested and pay R100 as an admission-of-guilt fine. Others are taken to court where they are later released, " Lesabane said.

She said this was frustrating the police.

ratsatsip@sowetan.co.za