Gatundu South Children’s Officer, Gabriel Kitili, has raised alarm over increased cases of mothers abandoning their young children in pursuit of jobs abroad.
Speaking to Hivisasa on phone, Kitili pointed out that his department was currently handling over ten cases of children left unattended by their mothers in search of 'greener pastures' in Arab countries.
The children’s officer revealed that most of the women process their travel documents and work permits secretly without informing their husbands or relatives only to disappear when their time to fly out of the country reaches.
He called on immigration officers, to conduct background checks on people wanting to travel abroad, saying that some married men and women were abandoning their responsibilities with impunity.
Kitili cited the case of 32-year-old Phyllis Wanjiru Nguri, a mother of three, who travelled to Saudi Arabia to work as a house girl a month ago.
The officer narrates that when the husband, Joseph Mwaura Kahumba, learnt of her intentions he petitioned the matter with the children’s department. But attempts to prevent her from leaving were unsuccessful.
“Attempts by the children’s department to have the employment agency reject her travel documents landed us in court for interfering with her personal freedom,” he explained.
Wanjiru is said to have secretly acquired travel documents and had also taken the children to her aged parents in Nakuru without the knowledge of her husband.
She left behind a one-year-old daughter and two other children all aged below 10.
“It is because of such incidences that we are experiencing an upsurge in cases of defilement in this area when children are left in the wrong hands,” he lamented.