Tracing a lost person is a tedious, expensive and emotionally draining experience. Yet family tracing services exist. There are organisations that do this at a cost while some, like the Red Cross, do this free of charge. They have trained personnel who have the skills to trace the lost.
But most Kenyans who have lost their loved ones do not know about these services.
They struggle on their own, charting unknown waters in the search for their loved ones.
The Red Cross set up their tracing services after the World Wars, when they realised families were agonising due to their lost relatives.
The tracing services were meant to restore contact between families separated by armed conflict, disaster or migration.
Whenever there is a crisis the Red Cross will always have a desk for recording those who are rescued, hospitalised and deceased because they know that relatives may not know that one of their own was caught up in the crisis.
John Mwangi, a tracing officer with the Red Cross says most Kenyans associate the organisation with relief food supply and assisting the injured. “But tracing people is one of our roles and the services are free of charge,” he says.
However, the organisation does not deal with kidnap situations because that is a crime, which is handled by the police.
With an experienced tracing officer, a fruitful search may last anything from two hours to more than two years.
“A number of children who disappear from home are normally within their neighbourhood and if a search is mounted immediately they can easily be found,” says Mwangi.
He said the importance of using a tracing officer is because they offer support throughout the process of searching, regardless of the outcome, providing a service that is professional, compassionate and non-judgmental.
They also offer mediation and reconciliation services if requested.
“Mediation may be necessary in cases where a person runs away from home due to unresolved conflict.”
Mwangi says the easiest way to trace a person is to start immediately he or she fails to return home.
The search for toddlers and children aged less than ten must begin immediately as they can easily be knocked down by vehicles if left on their own.
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“Some people run away from home due to very flimsy reasons such as not wanting to participate in daily chores, so we are never judgmental when we embark on searches.”
Mwangi once helped trace a 12-year-old girl who had run away from home just because she was tired of being asked to wash dishes all the time.
In order to assist in tracing lost people the Red Cross requires the person’s full name and date of birth, their last known physical address and when they lived there.
They also have a form which relatives fill in with other relevant information that may assist in tracing a person.
Recently The Standard newspaper reported a peculiar case where a man from Mwingi was reunited with his family after 26 years. When he was asked where he had been all that time, he said he was in the next county employed as a herder.
Deviant children often end up on the streets.
“Tracing lost kin without the assistance of experts is a very expensive affair since a number of people take advantage of the situation to exploit the family. There are people who take advantage of the situation and ask for money to assist. Ignore such people since they just want to exploit your misery,” he advises.
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