Time for robust measures to care for children in distress

The picture in The Standard (May 8, 2015) of a little Turkana girl from Nadome asleep in the open on her own was heart-wrenching. The little girl was apparently among thousands others caught in the cross-fire as the Pokot and Turkana communities in the area clashed.

Many Kenyans of goodwill feel grateful to your newspaper for highlighting the plight of this young Kenyan child if the outpouring of sympathy is anything to go by.

Sadly, today there are far too many Kenyan children who are abandoned particularly due to violence in the communities where they live or even at home.

Part of services required to be given to those children through the Social Work departments/schools is counseling. Hopefully, the Nadome girl will receive that support.

Meanwhile, the reaction to the plight of the girl including offers of accommodation and refuge to her by Kenyans in the diaspora is a sign that we are a people that care for each other wherever we are.

Incidentally, because of our kinship values, there is a big potential for foster care among Kenyans which the Department of Children Services and the mother ministry should tap into.

In fact, it is unacceptable that the ministry concerned has not put in place policies for the recruitment and training of foster carers in all counties as part of building a strong and dependable fostering and adoption service in the county children and youth departments.

The colonial-era and outdated policy of placing newborns or even children under 14 years in the so-called “children’s homes” is cold and uncaring as it does not take into account the developmental needs of a child.

A child as young as a baby ought to grow up in a home environment, as opposed to a dormitory-style environment. Worse still, once placed in these ‘dormitories,’ the State does not even care to visit them regularly to know how they are faring.

If we had a functioning children’s services department in Turkana County, for instance, it would not have had to take media reports for the plight of the little girl to come to the attention of the Government or the public.

The law requires the Director of Children’s Services to provide accommodation to a child such circumstances as obtained during the fighting in Turkana County. The reason the law provides for such a requirement is due to having envisaged a situation where many children could be in distress due to one type of difficulty or the other. Given the raging conflict in Turkana and Baringo counties, there are chances that there will be many other children who will require to be cared for outside their homes.

Again, the sight of abandoned children on their own in unsafe circumstances including at night is not uncommon.

Indeed, we have hundreds if not thousands of children abandoned and neglected whom we gleefully refer to us ‘street children ‘or ‘street urchins’. Where are those who are supposed to arrange for the care of these children? Children social care, or their care by the public, is fully provided for by the Children Act, and indeed it is the reason the Department for Children’s Services was created.

It is time the minister and director in charge of children services created mechanisms which would ensure that every child in Kenya is safeguarded from harm associated with neglect and other forms of abuse and indignities.

Sleeping in the rubbish dumps and eating dirty leftovers therefrom for any child in this new Kenya is a scandal.