Street children should be protected

Our 2010 constitution is very categorical in affording and ensuring that the Kenyan people in all walks of life are treated with dignity. That dignity is universal to all. It is encapsulated in the principles of equality of treatment that stem from our historical injustices occasioned by discrimination or rather distinction.

Though afforded to the human race at large, it is under article 53 specifically afforded to children having regard to their vulnerable nature in society. It is a provision that advocates for the protection of the child inter alia from abuse, neglect and inhumane treatment. That duty to protect is vested on everybody by article 20 with the primary duty being on the parent. However where the child has no parent then the state assumes parental responsibility under the principle of parens partriae. Has it done so?

It’s quite disturbing to see how the two counties in question dealt with the street children. Ferrying them in lorries and dumping them at Malaba border is synonymous to what Id Amin did in Uganda in the 1970's. It is unacceptable in this democratic society. What they did violates the same document we hold with high esteem, it violates the very rights afforded by the text and other instruments like the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) and the African charter on the Rights and welfare of the Child (ACRWC) since they make part of the laws of Kenya.

The counties needed to act with sobriety affording those street children some assistance at their minimum. It is the best interests of the child that had to be their guiding principle, a principle which if taken into account at its fullest spirit would and always does afford the child the best it can get.