NANYUKI, Kenya (AP) – Margaret Wandia became pregnant after a week-long affair with British soldiers being trained near her community in Kenya. They met when he was working in a bar in his early 20s. He knew little about himself. He left her with a child of two kinds.
Now that son is 26 years old, and he is one of the efforts of a Kenyan lawyer to transfer a certain number of such children to Britain. The aim is to confront the authorities about the hundreds of such cases reported over the years, and to find the fathers and seek their support.
It is long overdue after years of efforts by human rights groups to hold British soldiers and their staff accountable for what they did during weeks of training in Kenya – including rape – and the children they leave behind.
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A $44 million defense contract was renewed in 2021. It allows up to 10,000 British troops to train for eight weeks in Kenya each year. Kenyan biracial children are one of the main concerns about the British mission, especially the alleged rape of local girls and women.
Like many biracial children in predominantly conservative Kenya, Wandia’s son, Louise Gitonga, said she felt isolated from society and left out of education and career opportunities for being “too white.”
“I have a problem with the recognition I give to alcohol,” the unemployed Gitonga told The Associated Press at his home in central Nanyuki. “Everywhere I pass people call me white. Some call me albino. These names hurt me a lot and hurt me.”
His mother recalled sending him to boarding school and being asked to pay high fees for her white child. She later married a local farmer, Mr. Paul Wachira, who believed in the difficulty of raising a biracial child.
“Sometimes I used to hide him so that he would not be seen by other family members during gatherings so that he would not ask many questions as he looked different from his siblings,” said Wachira.
Kenyan lawyer Kelvin Kubai represents 10 such children of visiting British soldiers. They said that not all of their parents’ relationships were harmonious. Working with a British law firm that he refused to name, he hopes to take some of these children to Britain next year and go to court.
“You know, children like this don’t know the circumstances they were born into,” said Kubai.
He hopes they will get citizenship. According to British law, children born to British citizens are eligible to become British citizens and take care of both parents if they are under the age of 18. Seven of Kubai’s children represent under the age of 18. support.
Kubai is also raising money — $4,600 so far — to conduct a DNA test to find the children’s fathers.
The identity crisis affects children born to white fathers. Kubai said he has not met the children of Black British fathers. “It wouldn’t be easy to see and not experience discrimination,” he said.
A spokesman for the British High Commission in a statement to the AP said that it and the British military training force in Kenya “cooperate with the local authorities to take care of children where there are claims related to the father.” Those officials did not respond to questions.
But Kenyan mothers and civil society organizations have long said that the British authorities have been of little or no help.
Generica Namoru, 29, is five years old after dating a British man on a teaching mission. This man’s name appears on the birth certificate as the father after he has agreed and given his documents for this process.
Namoru says that the man welcomed the child and talked to him but refused to send him money. He sought help from the offices of the British Army Training Unit Kenya. He said they would not listen.
“Sometimes they even forbade me to enter the gate,” he said. Now he is represented by Kubai.
Children of different races in the area around the British training center date back to the 1960s when Kenya was under British rule. Those who were born decades ago are also part of the current efforts to seek justice and support.
David Mwangi Macharia, 68, is nicknamed “The British” because of his light skin. He said his mother had an affair with a British soldier. He works as a night watchman and a part-time mason after dropping out of primary school due to being teased and discriminated against.
“(Kenyans) always think that I cannot do menial jobs despite the fact that I am not educated,” said Macharia. He even found it difficult to get along with his black-skinned siblings.
Efforts to hold the British military accountable have for some time achieved little, Kenyans say.
Marion Mutugi, commissioner of the Kenya National Commission on Human Rights, said the relationship between British soldiers and local women ranges from consensual to coercive.
The commission says it has recorded more than 200 cases of rape involving British soldiers between 1983 and 2003, and is still collecting.
The British Ministry of Defense dismissed the rape cases as “false,” and an investigation by the Royal Military Police in 2007 did not result in compensation or justice for the victims, KNCHR said in a report to the Kenyan parliament highlighting the country’s reforms. ‘ contract of protection.
“(The authorities) also interfere with the investigation and disrupt the community. Human rights activists on the ground are being threatened and intimidated by BATUK and the Kenyan army and the Kenyan authorities to ensure that justice is not achieved,” said Mutugi.
“What we see at this commission is that they wanted to put a Band-Aid on the wound instead of respecting it, fixing it with surgery,” said the Commissioner.
The British High Commission says it is investigating the matter. The Kenyan authorities have yet to respond to these charges.
The most famous case is that of Agnes Wanjiru, who was killed in 2012 after an evening spent with British soldiers. An inquest in 2019 concluded that Wanjiru was murdered by British soldiers but no one was charged. A public consultation with the defense committee of Kenya’s parliament, which began in May, has revived the investigation.
Kubai said he hopes to provide the Kenyan children of the British military with the necessary knowledge.
“What we are bringing to the UK court is not just a case of rape, it is a case of these children who are prisoners of a behavior they did not choose,” he said.
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