5 - Saving the Children: Infant Mortality and the Politics of Motherhood

Summary

In June 1931, approximately 200 delegates gathered in Geneva to attend the International Conference on the African Child. The first of its kind in Europe, the conference had been convened by the Save the Children International Union (SCIU), a philanthropic organisation with a strong Christian background. It brought together doctors, missionaries, social scientists and philanthropists, as well as high-ranking official representatives of colonial powers and international institutions like the League of Nations and the International Labour Office and even a few representatives of African associations. There were two Portuguese participants, one of whom was the Count of Penha Garcia, who also acted as vice-president of the conference and chaired one of the sessions. Being one of Portugal’s foremost colonial experts and diplomats of the time, his presence was testimony to the importance the Portuguese government attached to the event.¹ For four days, the participants discussed issues considered key to the welfare of African children: the medical and socio-economic causes of and solutions to stillbirth and infant mortality, education, and working conditions for children and adolescents.²