This archive report was first published on 14 January 2020.
Child Custody and the Gender Debate ¶
As I watched a recent video of a young girl clinging to her father, who had been ordered to hand her over to her mother, I couldn't help but think about the unfairness of the current child custody laws in Kenya.
According to Chapter 153 of the Separation and Maintenance Act, a mother is given more power to seek custody of a child under 16 years old, unless there is sufficient evidence to discredit her. This means that a father must work twice as hard to prove his abilities and discredit the mother in order to be considered fit for custody.
As a father who has raised a child in the absence of the mother, I can attest to the fact that this system is failing us. It is absurd that the law ignores a father's years of raising a child and deems the mother better simply because she is the mother.
However, in this particular case, the court's ruling was overturned, and the father was allowed to have his baby back. This was likely due to the young girl's reaction in court and the social media uproar that followed.
Unfortunately, this is not an isolated incident. There are many men out there who are quietly raising their kids alone, and the law is failing them. Unless the law is amended and our judicial system employs people who can use wisdom in places where the law shows gaping loopholes, men will continue to lose their children to undeserving mothers because they have a lower hand in matters of custody.
It's time for us to rethink our approach to child custody and put the child's interest first. We need to emphasize the concept of 'the most deserving parent' regardless of whether it's the father or mother.
