In this story, Kurunzi focuses on another case filed by Muriungi & Co Advocates on behalf of Kenyan’s to Kenyan’s Peace Initiative adoption society over Baby George, who had been placed with Missionaries of Chairty Children’s Home.
In Cause Number 108 of 2015, the French couple of Paul and Fraziska Bouzon applied to adopt Baby George and the matter first came for hearing in court 8 May 2015 and the court appointed Monica Njeri Gachuru, a social worker to be the custodian of the child.
Baby George, who was found abandoned around Kiamaiko area in Nairobi while about one day old on 31 August 2013, had been freed for adoption on 29 October 2014. The law prohibits adoption of children below a year old.
Of concern is the fact that the couple had adopted another child from Rwanda, born on 7 September 2009, and they had not produced a letter of suitability as required by law.
Truth is that there was no evidence of the adoption society attempting to trace the child’s family and that tracing Baby George’s relatives would have been almost impossible considering his age when he was abandoned.
However, considering the moratorium was in place, the adoption society should have considered local adoption in line with the Cabinet directive.
Why would a good Samaritan find a child in Huruma then report at Kamukunji?
The child in this case is Baby Shawna, a female child estimated to have been born on 20th August 2013, found abandoned outside a Good Samaritan House in Huruma while wrapped in a paper bag.
The Good Samaritan rescued the child and reported the matter at Kamukunji Police Station, after which the child was committed to Thomas Barnados Home on 13/11/2013 under P/C order No. 410 of 2013 after referral from Missionaries of Charity Children’s Home.
The Kamukunji Police Station in their final police letter dated 10/03/2014 (exactly six months) had indicated that no one claimed the child and the efforts to trace child parents/relatives were unsuccessful.
The application to have American couple of Travis Keith Nielsen and Patricia Ann Nielsen was filed through Kenya Christian Home adoption society on 9 April 2015.
It is curious why a good Samaritan would find a child abandoned at Huruma then report the matter at Kamukunji, so far away from the jurisdiction where the child was found.
Why did a couple ordered siblings get different children?
Of further concern is the fact that the child was being put up for adoption by foreign parents when the moratorium was in place and without exploring the possibility of the child being adopted locally in compliance to the principle of subsidiarity as envisaged by the Hague Convention on inter-country adoption.
Further questions arise from the fact that the couple had applied to adopt two children, only if they were siblings, but they ended up being placed with two children who were not siblings through a second application (Cause No. 94 of 2015).
The court had appointed Lucy Kimaru, a social worker attached to the Catholic Diocese of Ngong’. The next article will focus on cases involving Mahali Pa Maisha Children’s Home and Mogra Rescue Centre, where Muriumngi & Co Advocates appeared for two different couples who were making their second adoption applications between 2012 and 2014
