This archive report was first published on 11 November 2019.
Kenya's Single Mothers and the Right to Parental Care ¶
According to the Kenya Demographic Health Survey of 2014, 18% of the national teenage pregnancy/motherhood rate was 18 per cent; 15 per cent of all adolescent women had given birth; sexually active unmarried adolescents accounted for 49.3 per cent, thus becoming potential candidates for single motherhood.
Article 53(1)(e) of the Constitution clearly provides that, "Every child has the right to parental care and protection, which includes equal responsibility of the mother and father to provide for the child, whether they are married to each other or not".
Single motherhood in Kenya is an undisputed phenomenon. The Kenya Integrated Household Budget Survey of 2015/16 reported that 32.4 per cent of households in the country were headed by females.
However, the focus must always be on the child. If two tango, there is an absolute duty towards any offspring. Even if the man terminates the side relationship with the "single mother" of their child, ultimately such progeny will have succession rights since no child is illegitimate when it comes to inheritance from his or her biological father.
Senator Irungu Kang'ata is right to seek a legislative pathway for enforcing the parental responsibility of deadbeat dads. However, this crusade should be achieved through persuasion, cultural re-engineering and realistic legal enforcement mechanisms. Otherwise the legislator's noble cause is likely to be thwarted by male resistance.
Prof Kibwana, the Governor of Makueni County, emphasizes that a child by a single mother lacks parenting by the natural father. This does not mean the mother's parenting will be inferior. Indeed, the majority of children of single mothers turn out to be well-brought-up. This happens largely because the single mother invests more time, energy, and care so as to fill the obvious gap.
Under no circumstances should a child be denied knowledge of who their mother and father are. Even a child sired by a stranger within a marriage has the right to parental recognition and support by the biological father.
