Seen these 16 Kenyan kids? AS Roma is looking for them

More than 200,000 children are housed in children homes in Kenya. [Courtesy]

Have you ever thought for a second what would happen if your baby or child disappears and gets lost without a trace?

This is the plight that some parents or guardians are facing in Kenya as there are many missing children, and some cases have not been solved for decades.

Italian football club AS Roma partnered with Missing Child Kenya in July to search for Kenyan children who went missing.

The top Italian Seria A club on Wednesday shared the plight of 16 minors on its social media sites asking fans and the general public to help in tracing the young ones.

Roma pointed out that from July when the summer transfer window was opened, the club kick-started the campaign with hope that the children would be found.

“Back in July, #ASRoma teamed up with @missingchildke to highlight individual cases of missing children in Kenya when we announced transfers. Throughout our summer social media campaign, 16 young Kenyans were featured - all pictured here. We still hope they will be found,” AS Roma posted on Twitter.

Video: The 16 young Kenyans

Back in July, #ASRoma teamed up with @missingchild_ke to highlight individual cases of missing children in Kenya when we announced transfers. Throughout our summer social media campaign, 16 young Kenyans were featured - all pictured here. We still hope they will be found ???????? ♥? ???????? pic.twitter.com/UsxEJpVP9B — AS Roma English (@ASRomaEN) September 4, 2019

In June, the Italian club in a similar campaign partnered with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children in the United States and Telefono Azzurro in Italy to use the club’s social media channels to raise awareness about the plight of missing children.

“In 2019, Roma are taking a completely different approach to announce new signings – in an effort to use the club’s extensive digital media following and presence for social good.

“With each player signing announcement the club makes, a video will be released that will feature the faces and details of a number of children who are currently missing – with the goal of generating publicity that could result in someone, somewhere, offering valuable information about the whereabouts of the missing child,” Roma said in a statement.

AS Roma have shown that football is not only for entertainment but also has the power to bring people together, regardless of their age, race, gender, culture, or nationality and help solve problems in society.

The Child Welfare Society of Kenya (CWSK) in its Missing Children database has photos of children reported to have been missing and also their current residence. 

CWSK also has a slot in its website where you can report missing kids and has a statutory responsibility to provide services to all marginalised children.

According to the International Centre for Missing and Exploited Children, eight million children go missing annually which translates to nearly 22,000 children every day around the world.

In Kenya, the magnitude of cases of missing children is not known. According to a 2007 UNICEF study, more than 200,000 children are housed in children homes across the country while another 250,000-300,000 are living and working on the street.

Others are unaccounted for, housed by strangers or engaged in harmful and illegal servitude.

A baseline survey by the Centre for Missing Children Kenya shows that 710 cases of missing and lost children were recorded at police stations in Nairobi in 2012/13.

Many more cases are never formally reported nor recorded.

Lost and unidentified children are susceptible to a higher risk of abuse, exploitation, trafficking or even death.

The Constitution and the Children’s Act mandate the Government to make efforts in tracing lost children and to provide the best alternative care to such a child.

However, there are no standardised policy guidelines to aid in the search for missing children.

As is often the case, police are often blamed for not doing enough to trace missing children.

Once the complaint has been filed and booked in the Occurrence Book, desperate parents are left hanging with agony, grief and despair.