Parents With Joint Custody Can Now Move Children Between Homes During Lockdown

JOHANNESBURG – Parents with joint custody are now allowed to move their children between their respective homes during the lockdown.

The Social Development Department amended the regulations under the Disaster Management Act, with the new laws published in the government gazette on Tuesday night.

As part of previous lockdown regulations, parents were not allowed to move children between their homes as a precautionary measure to minimise the risk of spreading the coronavirus.

The Social Development Department’s offices have been flooded with requests from parents asking government to relax the regulation, which prohibited children from seeing both parents during the lockdown.

Under the new regulations:

• parents have to be in possession of an existing court order where the parental responsibilities and rights agreement registered with the family advocate are outlined;
• the house where the child is set to go must be coronavirus free – this means there must be no one living there who is even suspected of coming into contact with a person who may have contracted the virus; and
• the parent transporting the child must have at least a copy of the court order or official agreement setting out the visitation rights with them at the time of travelling.

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EWN