This archive report was first published on 30 August 2019.
Published on August 30, 2019
Migori Woman Abandons Twins in Church, Now Seeks Them Back ¶
A Migori woman's decision to abandon her six-month-old twins in a church in Awendo has sparked a custody battle. The woman, who had been in a relationship with a businessman in Mbita town, left the twins in a church in South Sakwa ward in Awendo on February 2019 after a series of quarrels with her partner.
According to Rongo children's officer David Magongo, the woman had been dejected and walked for more than 45 kilometres to South Sakwa where she left the twins in a church. A good Samaritan found the children, took them to the police, and reported to the children's department.
The twins were taken to the New Life orphanage in Kisumu. However, the woman has now surfaced, seeking to claim the twins from the orphanage in Rongo. Her ex-partner, who is facing charges of child neglect at Kamagambo police station in Rongo town, denies her custody, citing child neglect.
Rongo resident magistrate Raymond Lang'at has ordered the couple to undergo DNA testing to determine the twins' paternity before a trial can begin. The court has also ordered that the children continue to stay at the orphanage for three months while the case is heard.
Magongo said that when the couple heard that the matter of adoption was to come up in a Rongo court, they turned up at his office and wanted to claim the twins. However, the businessman said that after the issue of adoption came up, he realised that they were from his ex-partner after his local chief alerted him.
He said because the children were last traced to him, he has been forced to look for the woman until now. The ex-couple ended up at the children's office, and the officer alerted Kamagambo police officers who checked on the matter and arrested the two on the spot.
