A photo of a tiny baby, wrapped in soft blankets and left outside a Kenyan church was recently shared in the media, starting debates about the many struggles households undergo.
The questions we need to be asking and solving here have to do with what circumstances people are in when they have to make these desperate and impossible choices, and what could have been done to prevent these choices from even having to arise.
When we think about that little baby, alone under a tree, warm and calm with bright twinkling eyes, we hope for safe and kind home placements where this baby and hundreds of others like them can grow up loved and protected.
We also realise how many issues in Kenya have been left to individuals when they should be communal and institutional, with requisite support. Reproductive health education and access gaps have been demonstrated time and time again as too many young people find sexual abstinence not feasible.
Further, sexual coercion of minors is an epidemic at this point, with pregnant teens usually abandoned when the rubber meets the road and forced into parenthood as punishment.
Further, many families want children and are unable to have them physically. They find adoption processes to be a hotbed of insurmountable bureaucracy.
This leaves room for many grey and black market solutions to take advantage of their desire for children, ranging from problematic surrogacies to overt human trafficking. The desire to have children should not be turned into an opportunity for crime because of the government’s reluctance to end gatekeeping in this arena.
Honest research about the current understanding of these matters, and possible, culturally responsive solutions as suggested by experts globally, are desperately needed. This would also include unpacking wider societal reticence around formal adoption, including lack of refusal to help families in crisis which enables their breaking, and stigma of children that do not belong by blood, unspoken “preference” for girls as families find ways to avoid leaving an inheritance to boys who are “not of their blood”, and more. Social norms that create discrimination must be challenged and uprooted by all, with faith leaders, social influencers, and the media needed to take the lead.
A large part of this holiday season is defined, in some belief systems, by the tale of a young mother heavily pregnant and needing urgent assistance that was not easy to procure.
While the positive outcome of that particular story is sung to different Christmas carol melodies all around the world every December, we must urgently find ways to alleviate the complex circumstances of present-day households facing acute crises.
In addition, the state must ensure that support and care for all vulnerable minors are prioritised, providing resources, support and training or personnel as needed, as well as strict oversight to ensure quality service provision and care.
