Parents and leaders, including religious leaders, from various parts of Kisii and Nyamira counties have expressed fear over the welfare of children during the long December holiday.
They say the holiday, which comes after a busy school year, has become a season of fear instead of joy. Instead of resting and helping at home, many children roam villages and trading centres, where they are allegedly introduced to alcohol, drugs, theft and early sex by older youths and unscrupulous adults.
The Priest in Charge of Masimba Catholic Parish, Lawrence Nyaanga, decried heavy alcohol and drug abuse among students on holiday and blamed parents for tolerating the vice.
Speaking during a service at Masimba, he said many students who should be using the holiday to rest, revise and help their parents have instead been left to roam, where they are introduced to alcohol, bhang and other drugs by older youths and unscrupulous traders.
"Let those found culpable be taken to prison to do hard labour or train as carpenters or masons to come back and help us after they have been corrected," he said.
Nyaanga said punishment alone is not enough, and that correction must be painful enough to make a young person change and useful enough to give him a skill to live on. A boy who learns carpentry or masonry in a correctional centre, he argued, will return home as a builder and not as a burden. A girl who is guided and counselled will return as a mother and a teacher to others, not as a drunkard.
He took a swipe at parents who buy their children's freedom through bribery when they are arrested by police for crimes. He said such parents are not saving their children but destroying them, because a child who learns that his father can buy his way out of every crime will never fear the law.
He urged security officers to carry out their duties without fear or favour. "Do not look at whose child it is. Do not look at who has money. The law is the law," he said, adding that when police fear to arrest the children of the rich and powerful, the poor suffer and crime grows.
A similar message was echoed by the Member of County Assembly (MCA) for Bombaba Borabu Ward, Beatrice Makwae. She accused parents of abandoning their parental roles and sending children to relatives, where they encounter dangers such as abuse, bad influence from wayward peers and adults with uncouth lifestyles who lure them into illicit marriages.
Makwae said many parents have become too busy chasing money, politics and business, leaving the raising of children to grandparents, aunties, uncles and house helps who are already overwhelmed. In such homes, she said, children learn what they should not learn, see what they should not see and are exposed to men and women who take advantage of their innocence.
She reminded parents that those who abuse children are often close relatives, and that they should not leave their children wandering with such people. "If your child must visit relatives, go with them to save their lives," she said.
The MCA warned that a child sent away without guidance may return home pregnant, addicted, rude or carrying a disease, and that the same parent who sent the child away will be the one crying. She asked parents to stay close to their children, know their friends, check their phones and ask where they sleep at night.
In neighbouring Nyamira County, parents of Isoge Location lamented increasing indiscipline among youth, who they said join other criminals to steal household items, hens and vegetables from farms and sell them to buy illicit beer and play pool.
The parents, led by Gladys Nyaboke, said the youth have turned theft into a daily job. They claimed that items such as a sufuria are stolen one day, a hen the next, and cabbages, maize and bananas from farms at night, then sold cheaply in the market to raise money for chang'aa, bhang and pool. By morning, they said, a parent wakes up to an empty chicken house and an empty shamba.
They blamed the police for laxity and asked Nyamira County Commissioner Joseph Kemorijo to investigate the officers. The parents claimed that they report cases but nothing happens, suspects are released the same day, and the same boys return at night to steal again.
They also raised concern over escalating cattle theft in the region, saying that if it continues they will be impoverished and unable to take their children to school. A cow, they said, is not just an animal in Gusii land. It is school fees, a bank, dowry and milk for the children. When a thief steals a cow at night, they said, he has stolen a child's future.
The parents asked the County Commissioner to transfer officers who collude with criminals and to ensure regular night patrols in Isoge and neighbouring locations.
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