Widower fights to have custody of his daughter

A widower is fighting to have custody of his 17-year-old daughter who is being held at a children’s home against his wish.

GMM, in his petition at the High Court, narrated the pain he had gone through trying to get back his daughter who was allegedly defiled, recruited into a drug trafficking gang, arrested and later handed over to Mama Fatuma Rescue Centre in October last year.

His application shows the agony of a father left with three children after his wife died in 2012, and the struggles he has gone through before his first-born was taken away.

“What makes me sad is that she is being compelled to undertake Madrasa classes at the Muslim rescue centre despite the fact she is Christian. I just want her to be released to me, for her to reunite with the family and go back to school,” said GMM.

GMM, a security guard, said his daughter’s troubles started in December 2016 when she went missing from their home in Tassia Estate, Nairobi, while he was at work.

He reported the matter to Tassia police station and three days later, the minor was found in a house at Mukuru Kayaba slums while in the company of a man.

The man was arrested while his daughter, then 15, was taken to Mama Lucy Hospital, where medical tests confirmed she had been defiled. The man was charged in court but later released after it emerged it was his neighbour who had defiled the girl.

Drug peddlers

After the incident, GMM said he enrolled his daughter at a boarding school in January 2017, but she escaped two weeks later with the help of the man who defiled her.

“When we found her, my daughter confided in me that the man who defiled her had injected her with some drugs and introduced her to the illicit trade. She told me she was recruited to the gang of drug peddlers and her work was to make deliveries to clients,” said GMM.

Later, the father sought help and enrolled her at Kirigiti Girls Rehabilitation School.

However, in November 2017, the girl disappeared from the rehabilitation school through the help of the drug peddling gang, which he alleged was being protected by a senior police officer from Tassia police station.

She was arrested in December 2017 for drug trafficking and committed to an approved school until September last year, when she was released.

GMM claimed a month later, his daughter was again arrested by officers from Directorate of Criminal Investigations and taken to Mama Fatuma Rescue Centre without his consent.

Girl’s detention

“My daughter is being held at the institution on claims police rescued her and that she is a child in need of help, which has affected her education and development,” said GMM.

He argued that his daughter’s detention was a violation of her rights to freedom and asked the court to order her release.

He wants police compelled to arrest and prosecute the man who defiled and introduced her to drugs.