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Failed marriages send scores of children to the streets

 

Jacob Jillo*, 16, would be preparing to sit the Kenya Certificate of Primary Education (KCPE) examination next March if his parents were responsible enough to support his dreams.

Every morning, as his peers carry their bags to school, he takes his sack to dumping sites in homesteads and markets around Hola town in Tana River County to collect plastic bottles to sell.

The money he earns supports his four siblings with food and books while his mother looks for menial jobs to support the children.

Jillo, the firstborn in a family of five children, has tried numerous times to share his concerns with his father in vain.

“When my mother learns that I confronted my father, I will get to sleep in the market for a week or, if I choose to stay, it will be a whole night of beatings,” he says.

“Next year I want to buy myself two pairs of uniforms, good books and shoes and pay exam fees once and for all, so that I may focus on my studies.”

Jillo’s tribulations mirror those of many other children in the streets of Hola, Bura, Madogo, and Garsen towns who suffer as a result of failed polygamous marriages.

Family feuds and poverty are some of the main factors fuelling child abandonment in Kenya, officials say.

A Unicef report reveals that at least 23,000 children in Tana River County do not attend school and instead loiter in the streets or engage in child labor.

County Children’s Officer Daniel Waiti says more than 1,500 cases registered with his office are of child neglect.

“Children are surviving on their own. Some are getting defiled and ending up in early marriages,” he said.

Children in Tana River, he said, are vulnerable and likely to join extremist groups to support their relatives.

Groots Kenya, an organisation that deals with women’s empowerment and social support, is working to close the gap by providing alternative economic solutions for such victims.

“Children from polygamous families are bound to have mental health problems, social problems, and lower academic achievement. This predisposes them to (low) self-esteem, anxiety and depression, which leads them to the streets,” said Evalyn Maina, Groots project coordinator in Tana River County.

As a result, Groots has embarked on engaging vulnerable groups through capacity building and providing grants for economic development so as to lift them from dependency.

The government, on the other hand, continues to track down children missing from schools and those in the streets and return them back to school.

“We are partnering with the department of children’s services to make parents accountable, but this county still needs a rescue centre or these children will go back to the streets,” said Tana River County Commissioner Mbogai Rioba.    BY DAILY NATION  

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