If anti-gambling campaigners in the U.K are looking for ammunition then they’ve been handed an ace card courtesy of a couple in South Africa.
It emerged today that an eight year old girl was left at the entrance of a Casino in Durban for seven hours while her parents gambled the night away.
Children’s rights groups in South Africa and across the world said the girl was a victim of parental abuse and want stiff measures introduced to punish such actions.
National co-coordinator of Childline Joan Van Niekerk called on Suncoast Casino and Entertainment World and other casinos to report the child's parents as well as the many others who treat their children in a similar manner to child welfare authorities.
The child's parents have been banned by Suncoast Casino from entering the casino and surrounding area for three months.
But the short ban has been criticised by Childline as not "solving anything".
"This is another situation of appalling parental responsibility and boils down to child abuse and neglect. What will now happen is that these parents will continue to gamble at other establishments and instead of taking her with them, they will either lock her up at home or leave her in a car, making her an invisible neglected child, like so many others whose parents are addicted to gambling," said Van Niekerk.
A concerned grandparent, Lynette Reinbach, who found the girl waiting outside Suncoast Casino at 2am on Monday said she was shocked to find "such a tiny girl all by herself".
"I was leaving the casino when I noticed the girl standing by herself. I went up to her and inquired about her parents' whereabouts and she said they were gambling. She then began crying," she said.
Reinbach said she immediately approached the security guards and asked them how long the child had been standing there and they said since about 7pm Sunday night.
"By the time we called the security manager, her mother had arrived in a drunken state. She was rude to me and that angered me because she was the negligent one," she said.
Reinbach said: "I was so disgusted with that child's parents. They are despicable and they don't deserve to have children. The sad thing is that there are a lot of parents that do this to their children.
In the last two months Suncoast Casino has banned three sets of parents for neglecting their children, with last year seeing a total of 10 parents being banned.
