Child trafficking issue must be priority for new Labour CS Chelugui

As Simon Chelugui settles down into office as the new Cabinet Secretary for Labour and Social Protection, there’s one urgent matter that he cannot play blind to in the manner his predecessor Ukur Yattany did – the reality of child trafficking in the country.

CS Yattany, recently under fire for how he had overseen unparalleled nepotism at the ministry before President Uhuru Kenyatta permanently moved him to head the finance docket, was reluctant to see proposals by the expert/steering committee on the implementation of the moratorium on inter-country adoption of Kenyan children.

The Cabinet moratorium was adopted on 26 November 2014 but years later, as the expert committee established there existed serious legal, institutional and structural gaps within the adoption system in Kenya.

This is what CS Chelugui must deal with and urgently so to save Kenyan children from the complex cartel behind the illegal practice.

He must confront and dismantle the cartels comprising licensed adoption service providers, government officials, charitable children institutions and lawyers, who continue to expose children to exploitation and fighting government efforts to protect children.

Commercial venture

Unlike his predecessor, Chelugui must never allow the adoption process to continue being a commercial venture under his watch; adoption must prioritize the best interest of the child.

Inter-country adoptions have been and remain the conduit through which Kenyan or refugee children resident in Kenya are trafficked to Europe and America.

“There has emerged a complex cartel of professionals and stakeholders in the child protection system in the country, who circumvent the law and other social processes and also take undue advantage of vulnerable families,” reads part of the report presented to the CS (Yattany) in 2018.

“They take children away from poor and vulnerable families to provide children for adoption. The cartel is so well organized that it takes advantage of the existing weaknesses within the system for commercial purposes disguised as child protection measures. The network is so advanced that it mutates from one measure to another making it very difficult to detect.”

The report does not only reveal the finest details of how, despite the moratorium being in place, both inter-country and resident adoptions continue to take place unabated but also indicts the department of children services for being at the centre of the practise.

According to the report, the DCS, who – through a letter of clearance, gave a go ahead for cases to continue despite the moratorium.

Irregularly cleared applications

“The Adoption Committee under the DCS has failed in its mandate of ensuring safeguards for Kenyan children.”

The report, which says guardianship and custody orders are being used to take children out of Kenya, cites three cases where children were placed in inter-country adoption after the adoption committee had irregularly cleared applications to move to the High Court to seek adoption orders without meeting all the required thresholds.

“It was observed foreigners are using the two to get children out of the country therefore avoiding the adoption process but nevertheless taking the children out of the country.

“There seems to be a complex cartel on child trafficking through adoption, involving adoption societies, CCIs, government officers in DCS, Adoption Committee, police officers, lawyers, social workers and sometimes point persons in local community.”

Other irregularities called out by the report include cases where children are branded lost so that they can be given out for adoption, while others are given without their parents being aware to give consent.

Massive falsification of documents and deliberate concealing of material facts about the existence of ‘abandoned children’ families to ensure the families are not traced so that can be put out for adoption is also unearthed by the report.

“There is hoarding of children whereby the CCIs keep them until six months elapse in order to meet the legal requirements necessary to declare the children free for adoption.”

Further investigations

CS Chelugui must ensure that the recommendation to further investigate and prosecution of institutions and individuals working in cahoots to perpetrate the practice is implemented with the urgency that this matter deserves.

Other urgent recommendations the CS must champion include expansion of the moratorium to stop guardianship and custody by foreigners, establishment of more temporary places of safety to accommodate separated children) and enactment of an Adoption Act to provide for the creation of a Children’s Commission and a national adoption agency.

The report states the children are currently at the mercy of CCIs, which keep mushrooming in the absence of adequate government facilities in different regions of the country

The Adoption Act, which would separate the sensitive adoption from general matters of children contained in the Children’s Act, should provide for how government can keep a database to monitor the entry and exit of children in CCIs, deinstitutionalization of all children in CCIs with emphasis on reunification with their families or placement in alternative family care in Kenya and abolition of establishment of new CCIs as well as progressive closing the existing ones.

Legal instruments and structures

Other provisions in the Act should create a framework for clear post-adoption follow-up to establish the status of adopted children within and outside the country as well as legal instruments and structures to position Child Welfare Society of Kenya to become the national protection agency and adoption society.

The expectation of Kenyan children protection campaigners is that CS Chelugui will urgently petition the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions to immediately charge those whose files have already been forwarded to his office.

Further action should be a call on Inspector General of Police, Hillary Mutyambai, to establish and specially train a special police unit for child protection.

The issues highlighted in this commentary have barely scratched the surface on this matter and Bwana Waziri, your in-tray is so full and now you are duly and competently reminded that the ministry you have taken over is not all about dealing with trade unions and employment issues; there is the big, urgent matter of children that you must prioritize.

Follow Kurunzi News for a serialization of the damning expert/steering committee on implemtation of the Cabinet moratorium on adoption of Kenyan children by foreigners report.

You will find out the countries to which most Kenyan children are trafficked, the children’s homes, government officials and lawyers cited as being involved in suspected child trafficking activities in Kenya.

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