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Healing the children
KISUMU, 26 February 2008 (IRIN) - One of the greatest challenges
following the post-election violence in Kenya is to restore the
physical and mental wellbeing of 150,000 displaced children, many
of whom have witnessed atrocities and lost contact, in many cases
permanently, with their families, humanitarian workers told IRIN.
"The future of Kenya is very dark because the children we are
bringing up, the things they saw, we don't know how those things
are going to [affect] their lives," said James Riako, a volunteer
counsellor with the Kenya Red Cross Society (KRCS), working in a
transit camp for displaced people in the grounds of St Stephen's
Cathedral in Kisumu, the capital of Nyanza Province in western
Kenya.
"The children are harbouring a lot. They were drawing pictures for
us. One child said: 'Somebody came and killed my parents when I
was there. We were burnt and I am the only one who survived.'
Another one could not talk.
"They are harbouring a lot of anger, a lot of hatred, a lot of
resentment and all their frustration. They know their people have
been chased and that the other tribe is an enemy," he said.
"Some of them are very revengeful," agreed Rosemary Akoth Okomo,
another counsellor. "If you ask them, 'if you happened to meet a
Kikuyu, what will you do?', they will tell you, 'I can even kill
that person'. They keep thinking of the way they lost their
parents, the way they lost their property. It haunts them."
Evans Omondi, 13, a Luo who was displaced from Nakuru in Rift
Valley Province when his house was burned down, said he did not
want to see his former classmates, most of whom were Kikuyu,
because "they might kill me".
Riako was adamant that displaced children needed counselling to
cope with their ordeals. "If you just take them [to their
relatives' homes], it will not help the nation. We need to draw
out what is inside them. Then we make arrangements for following
up with counselling so that we can get these things out of their
minds," he said.
Pamela Sittoni, a spokeswoman for the UN Children's Fund, UNICEF,
agreed. "A comprehensive counselling package has to be developed.
[We'll be] looking at how we can follow up with these children and
provide the psycho-social support they need. That has to be a
priority."
Abandoned
Aside from the psychological risks, many children separated from
their parents are in physical danger.
Kisumu resident Angeline Akayo found two boys, aged one and two,
at the bus terminal as she was walking home from work one evening.
"It seems the person [who brought them to Kisumu by bus] abandoned
them there. I found street boys surrounding them. I tried to ask
them where their parents were but they could not say. I am a
mother myself and I sympathised with them. I decided to take them
home with me for the night," she said.
The elder boy later told her they were from Naivasha, almost 300km
away. Akayo took them to St Theresa's orphanage in Kisumu.
"It seems a man who was their neighbour saw their father killed
and their mother taken to hospital. He knew they were Luos from
Ahero so he put them on a bus to Kisumu," said Sister Philomena,
who runs the orphanage.
She registered the children with the police and the children's
department in the hope that their mother would look for them.
"The other day, the children's officers brought me two more
abandoned children. They don't know whether the parents are dead
or not. We expect more," said Sister Philomena.
At risk
Security lapses have allowed strangers to remove some children
from the transit camp.
Kevin Otieno, 15, was taken by a woman looking for a domestic
worker. Luckily, staff noticed Kevin was missing and the police
managed to trace him. Kevin was the only member of his family to
escape when their house in Naivasha was set on fire.
"There is a lady who came here today asking us to give her a child.
She wants two children to adopt under five. We asked her, 'who
told you children are being given away here?' Some people want to
use the kids for business," said Teresa Agutu, one of the
volunteers at the camp.
The KRCS was trying to trace the families of about 30
unaccompanied minors in Kisumu. Counsellors believe there are many
more children without adult protection because not all minors
passed through the transit camps in western Kenya after they
arrived from other parts of the country.
"We have three children who have been staying at the [Moi Stadium]
camp for almost three weeks now," said Irene Owuor, tracing
assistant with the KRCS. "We are liaising with the children's
department to find a place for the children to stay while we trace
their people. They were born in Nairobi. All they know is they are
Luos but they don't know from which area [their families
originally came].
"The children's homes that we trust are run by the government
because the other ones might have ulterior motives. The government
does not promote private institutions because some are not
genuine," explained Owuor.
The KRCS had passed 13 children on to the children's department,
which placed them in a remand centre in Kisumu. Most of the other
46 children in the centre were awaiting trial for criminal
offences.
"In Kisumu, we do not have a charitable children's institution
owned by the government apart from this one, which is a remand
home," said Kenneth Mbito, manager of the remand home.
"We keep them here although they are not supposed to be here. This
is a temporary place of safety. It's not the best place to keep
these children because it is a place for children who have been
charged with criminal activities. Mixing them is not the best but
we have no alternative," he said.
If the KRCS fails to trace the children's families, the children
will be put under state protection. The children's department will
then find alternative care for them, either in charitable
children's institutions or by offering them up for adoption.
Children who are placed with family members still face challenges,
particularly if the relatives are poor. Owuor said the success
rate for tracing children's families was 30 to 40 percent.
"Most of them unfortunately are ending up in children's homes,"
she said.
"Kids who are born in the towns find it rough in the villages. But
those are their closest relatives so we have no alternative but to
leave them there," said Owuor.
"Our main aim is to get the child to be in a safe place and we
assume the child is safe with real parents or close relatives. But
that is not always the case; you find a relative taking a child
and using the child for manual labour instead of taking good care
of it.
UNICEF has a cash transfer programme to support poor families that
take on extra orphans. "We are looking at whether the new
situation calls for us to expand that programme," said Sittoni.
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