Left behind in Kenya, the children of British soldiers struggle to find their identity

NANYUKI, Kenya — Margaret Wandia became pregnant after a week-long affair with a British soldier training near her community in Kenya. They met while she was working at a bar in her 20s. He knew little about him. He left her with a biracial child.

That son is now 26 and part of an effort by a Kenyan lawyer to bring a number of such children to Britain. The aim is to confront the authorities with hundreds of such cases reported over the years and find the parents and seek their support.

It’s a long shot after years of attempts by human rights groups to hold the British military and its personnel accountable for their actions during weeks of training in Kenya – including alleged rape – and for the children they leave behind.

The countries’ $44 million defense cooperation agreement has been renewed in 2021. It allows up to 10,000 British forces to train for eight weeks in Kenya each year. Biracial children in Kenya are part of wider concerns about the British mission, particularly persistent allegations of rape of local girls and women.

Like many biracial children in largely conservative Kenya, Wandia’s son Louise Gitonga said he felt left out of society and left out of educational and employment opportunities because he was “too white”.

“I have an identity crisis that drives me to alcoholism,” unemployed Gitonga told The Associated Press at his home in the central city of Nanyuki. “Everywhere I go, people call me white man. Others call me albino. These names cause me a lot of pain and hurt.”

His mother recalled taking him to boarding school and being asked to pay higher fees for her white child. She later married a local farmer, Paul Wachira, who recognized the challenges of raising a biracial child.

“Sometimes, I had to hide him from the rest of the family during gatherings to avoid many questions because he looked very different from his brothers,” said Wachira.

Kenyan lawyer Kelvin Kubai is representing 10 such children of visiting British forces. He stated that not all of their parents’ relationships were consensual. Working with a British law firm he declined to name, he hopes to take some of the children to Britain next year and go to court.

“You know, kids like that don’t know the circumstances they were born into,” Kubai said.

He hopes they will get citizenship. Under British law, children born to British citizens are eligible for British citizenship and the care of both parents if they are under 18. Seven of the children Kubai represents are under 18. For those over 18, the journey is a search for identity and support.

Kubai is also raising money — $4,600 so far — to conduct DNA tests to help find the children’s fathers.

Identity crisis affects children born to white fathers. Kubai said he has yet to meet children of black British fathers. “It wouldn’t be easy to spot and it wouldn’t discriminate,” he said.

A spokesman for the British High Commission, in a statement to the AP, said it and the British military training mission in Kenya “cooperate fully with local child support authorities where there are claims of paternity.” The respective authorities did not respond to questions.

But Kenyan mothers and civil society groups have long said British authorities have been of little or no help.

Jenerica Namoru, 29, has a 5-year-old child after meeting a British man on a training mission. The man’s name appears on the birth certificate as the father after he gave his consent and shared his documentation for the trial.

Namoru said the man initially accepted the child and communicated with her, but refused to send financial support. She sought help from the offices of the British Army training unit in Kenya. She said they wouldn’t listen.

“Sometimes, they even blocked me from entering the gate,” she said. She is now represented by Kubai.

The biracial children in the area around the British training site date back to the 1960s when Kenya was under British rule. Those born decades ago are also part of today’s efforts to seek justice and support.

David Mwangi Macharia, 68, is nicknamed “The Brit” because of his fair skin. He said his mother had an affair with a British soldier. He works as a night watchman and part-time bricklayer after dropping out of primary school due to ridicule and discrimination.

“(Kenyans) always think I can’t do menial jobs despite not being educated,” Macharia said. It was even hard for him to get along with his darker-skinned brothers.

Attempts to hold visiting British forces accountable have long gained little traction, Kenyans say.

Marion Mutugi, commissioner of Kenya’s National Human Rights Commission, said relationships between British soldiers and local women ranged from consensual to transactional to coercive.

The commission says it has documented more than 200 cases of rape involving British troops between 1983 and 2003 and continues to collect data.

Britain’s Ministry of Defense dismissed the rape cases as “not genuine” and an investigation by the Royal Military Police in 2007 did not result in compensation or justice for the victims, the KNCHR said in a report to the Kenyan parliament, which is protesting against previous renewal of countries. defense agreement.

“(Authorities) are also interfering with investigations by compromising the local community. Human rights defenders on the ground are being threatened and intimidated by both BATUK and Kenyan forces and Kenyan officials to ensure that justice is not served,” Mutugi said.

“Our view at the commission was that they wanted to put a band-aid on a wound instead of lacerating it, treating it and operating on it,” added the commissioner.

The British High Commission said it was looking into the allegations. Kenyan authorities have never responded to the allegations.

The most famous case is that of Agnes Wanjiru, it was killed in 2012 after an evening in the company of British soldiers. A 2019 inquest concluded that Wanjiru was killed by British soldiers, but no suspects were charged. A public hearing by the Kenyan parliament’s defense committee, which began in May, revived the investigations.

Kubai said he hoped to give the Kenyan children of British soldiers a much-needed sense of identity.

“What we’re bringing to court in the UK is not just the issue of rape, it’s the issue of these children who happen to be prisoners of an identity they didn’t choose for themselves,” he said.

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