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I sold my baby because I could not feed him

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Published on Tuesday, 23 November 2010 01:52

She sat forlornly in her prison cell, waiting for her turn to be escorted to Nakuru Children's Courts.

Risper Kemuma, 19, had no apology for the child trafficking offence she had been charged with, after being busted attempting to sell off her month-old baby to an undercover policewoman for Sh12,000.

Abject poverty, illiteracy and desperation, she said, had conspired to erode her ability to raise her second baby, and so chose to sell it.

Kemuma grew up without her parents; the only memory of them being stories rendered by her elder siblings, said the seventh born in a family of eight.

"I was told that they died a long time ago," she recalled. "I have no idea when that was, since all I remember is living with my aunt," she says.

The teenager dropped out of Rianyemo Primary School in Kisii after Standard Two, as her aunt could no longer afford to educate her. Then she started doing menial jobs around Isoge Village in Kisii.

Kemuma gave birth to her first-born in 2008, and her aunt was kind enough to take her in as well.

When she got pregnant with her second child, Kemuma grew more desperate. Things worsened when her aunt threw her out in May this year. By this time, she had lost contact with all but one sibling.

"The last time I saw them (her siblings) was in 2000 when we attended my sister’s burial in our rural home. I do not know what happened to them, or where they live ever since," she told The Standard.

Left with few options, Kemuma moved to Nakuru with her cousin.

"She told me she would help me find employment in Nakuru town, so I agreed to go with her," she says.

The young mother was lucky to secure a job as a househelp at Ponda Mali Estate in Nakuru at a ‘glorious’ wage of Sh1,000 per month. But it was better than nothing.

"It was not much but I had a place to stay, food to eat and I could manage to save for my maternity needs," she says.

Kemuma said she performed her chores dutifully until September when she delivered a baby boy.

Her employer, however, would not allow her to continue working for her and she was homeless once again, this time, with a three-day-old baby nestled in her lap.

Once again, she turned to the cousin who had brought her to Nakuru who agreed to house her, but only for a week. When her aunt received news that she had given birth again, she gave orders that Kemuma should never to return to Kisii.

She then went looking for the only sibling she was still in touch with – a sister also living in Nakuru.

It was while there that the idea of selling her baby dawned on her. She also contemplated killing the baby, she adds, but couldn’t quite bring herself to doing it.

When she found out that she could sell her baby to someone who was in a position to give him a good upbringing, Kemuma had no second or dissenting thought.

"I love my baby very much and if I had a choice I would not have sold him but I’m helpless as I cannot even afford food to be able to breastfeed him," she wept. "I only asked for the money because my neighbour, who told me he would find me a buyer, insisted I had to receive money from him," she said, adding she was ready to give the baby away for nothing.

Nakuru Resident magistrate Hezron Baraza sentenced the teenager to serve three years probation at Nakuru Probation Girls’ Hostel.