The term is three-in-one. A room used as the bedroom, living room and kitchen. This room had two beds, a few chairs, a makeshift countertop with a stove, and a bookshelf that housed books so dusty the covers were illegible. The room itself could not have been more than ten feet by ten feet. A single mosquito net hung from the ceiling, and clothes adorned the walls. This room is home to a single mother and her four children. The mother is a client of WOFAK – Women Fighting AIDS in Kenya. Diagnosed with HIV in February the mother has been struggling to come to terms with her condition.
WOFAK began working with the mother three months ago (date of our visit: September 11,th 2009) after she was referred to them from her diagnosing hospital. She had been sick for some time and sought treatment only to discover she is HIV positive. On their first visit WOFAK found the house in a state of disrepair. All the pots and pans were dirty, the sheets had not been washed in some time, and there were no clean clothes and no food to be found. The children were dirty and underfed. Upon receiving her diagnosis the mother had begun to neglect herself, her home and her children. The eldest daughter (eight years old) was playing mother to the other three children (a boy age four and twin girls age two.) Although she is of school age she had not been attending school to look after her siblings. Their mother is gone during the day, although she works only sporadically, and returns at night and promptly retires to bed. Their mother has a bed to herself, the eldest daughter shares with the twins and the boy sleeps on the floor. The twins were well behind developmentally, unable to walk at age two. The mother had also begun taking out her frustrations on the eldest girl. The girl was covered in scars. The scars were bite marks from her mother, and they covered her back and shoulders. One on her cheek had just begun to heal.
By the time of our visit there were some small differences. The twins where walking. There was food – WOFAK provides food everyday. The room was reasonably clean. However, much remained the same. The mother was absent. The eight-year-old daughter was not in school. The scars from wounds inflicted by her mother were still very fresh.
According to WOFAK they have submitted a request to have the children removed from the home. The upper management of WOFAK and then the governmental organization that handles child abuse must handle the request. Only then will the children be, at the very least, temporarily removed from the home. WOFAK believes that if the mother can receive the psychosocial support she needs she may in time be able to care for her children. According to the staff, she has made progress since working with WOFAK, and they’ve seen the clear evidence of minor improvements among the wellbeing children.
The children were extremely pleasant during our visit. The toddlers played on the bed, as their sister looked on. The eight-year-old girl answered the questions of the WOFAK staff. She looked tired. She was very thin, but smiled almost continuously. The four-year-old boy was in and out of the room playing with friends. According to WOFAK staff he is the mother’s favorite child and he looked to be the healthiest.
Despite the condition of these children and the neglectful behavior of their mother they remain in the home. WOFAK staff visits as often as they can, and during the visit another community health worker stopped by to ensure the children had eaten. She said she stops in everyday, because she often finds the children have not eaten by the afternoon. The WOFAK workers repeated that they felt the mother was under a great deal of stress, which is why she is unable to care for her children properly. They cited her recent HIV diagnosis, the fact that she has next to no education, little money, and four children to look after. According to the staff members she views her children as an unnecessary burden.
There are two reasons these children have remained in an abusive home. First, WOFAK believes the mother will in time have the capacity to take care of her children, once she has come to terms with her diagnosis and is back on her feet. Second, the process by which children are removed from abusive homes is slow. The recommendation has to be made from the WOFAK staff and passed through their chain of command and onto the government agency that handles child welfare. Bureaucracy takes time. Kenyan bureaucracy, I would imagine, takes longer. The WOFAK staff said that in the past if the government failed to act they themselves have removed children from the homes and looked after them while the government agencies played catch-up. Yet, they have been working with this individual family for upwards of three months. The children are still neglected and the eldest is certainly still abused regularly. The children remain with their mother, a mother who has exhibited no interest in their wellbeing.
WOFAK is understaffed, underfunded and overburdened. But the work they do is important. Without the support of an effective government agency to promptly handle reports of child abuse their work becomes harder, and real change is near impossible.
The above was part of a report I wrote for our program. I wanted to share this experience because I think about that little girl every day. I’ve never felt so helpless of frustrated. In Alaska, having work for Covenant House and been a mandated reporter, I would have known exactly what do. But here I had no idea. I had no number to call, no social worker to remove the children immediately. I bitch and moan at home about how ineffective The Office of Children’s Services is, and don’t bet me wrong, I stand by that…but here, it’s another ballgame. When I asked repeatedly at what point they would remove the children from the home themselves the WOFAK workers didn’t have an answer for me.
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