This archive report was first published on 21 September 2021.
Published on September 21, 2021, a disturbing image emerged from Thiru Primary School in Nyahururu, Kenya, where three children were tied to a post as punishment.
The picture, which shocked Kenyans, shows pupils, aged between seven and 12, tied together to a post. A rope goes around their small bodies from the chest to their thighs, leaving them exposed to the scorching sun.
The incident evoked memories of past atrocities, including executions in post-independence African countries and the slave trade. Visitors to Elmina Castle in Ghana can see iron rings in the concrete yard where recalcitrant slaves were chained and left to suffer in the West African sun.
Similarly, the treatment of the children in Thiru brought to mind the gassing of children at the Lang'ata Primary School in 2015. Heavily armed police lobbed teargas canisters in the midst of children, leaving some as young as seven unconscious and being rushed to ambulances.
Local newspapers juxtaposed images of the Lang'ata children with pictures of injured Soweto children being carried to hospitals after Apartheid police shot into crowds in 1976.
The children tied to a post and left to bake in the sun, like slaves, are from poor families. Their shoes are worn out, and one even wears old dirty plastic slip-ons. Their poverty, like their punishment, is heartbreaking.
As a Nairobi-based political commentator, Tee Ngugi notes that being a child and poor in the developing world makes every month a sinister one.
