Gatundu South Children’s Officer, Gabriel Kitili, has today raised an alarm over increased cases of mothers abandoning their young children in search of greener pastures in Arab Countries.
Kitili pointed out that his department is currently handling over 10 cases of children left unattended by their mothers who had clandestinely left the country for employment abroad leaving their underage children vagabond or in the care of grandparents.
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 and employment agents to closely scrutinise documents presented by people wanting to travel abroad in search of greener pastures, saying that some married men and women were abandoning their responsibilities with impunity.
Kitili cited the case of 32-year-old Peris Wanjiru Nguri, a mother of three children aged between seven and one year, where attempts by her husband and the children’s department to stop her from travelling to Saudi Arabia to work as a house girl a month ago landed the Department in court.
“Attempts by the Children’s Department to have the employment agency cancel her travel documents landed the Department in court for interfering with her personal freedom,” he explained.
He explained that the lady had secretly acquired travel documents and had even taken the children to her aging parents in Nakuru without the knowledge of her husband and when the husband, Joseph Mwaura Kahumba, got to know of her intentions petitioned the matter with the children’s department in vain.
“It’s because of such incidences that we are experiencing an upsurge of defilement cases in this area as children are left in the wrong hands as parents travel the globe in such of greener pastures,” he concluded.