Kenya Children's Legal Aid Work (KCLAW)

Programme Outline

Our mission is to enable the most impoverished and vulnerable children and their families to access justice and legal redress where their human rights have been infringed through the provision of direct legal advice, tailored advocacy and campaigning and ongoing community education and collaboration work.

We have a current caseload of 468 cases focusing on child neglect, maintenance, abuse and succession and inheritance. In 2008, we also provided specialised training on children's rights to over 80 professionals, 400 children and 200 parents/guardians.

Activities

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	Provision of free legal services, ensuring that poverty is not an excuse for inaction on gross child and other human rights abuses. Provision of effective, durable lobbying and advocacy on the rights of orphans and vulnerable children and their families in the local, regional and national context.
	Active dissemination of our knowledge and expertise in professional forums and facilitation of legal justice and advocacy networking and liaison at all levels to protect the individual, the community and society as a whole from human rights abuses. Assistance with additional psycho-social, medical and other practical services where possible to our clients.
	Development of a self-sufficient model of grassroots level legal advice and advocacy to ensure a durable, innovative presence in the promotion and protection of human rights in Thika District and beyond.

Case Studies of Success

A sexual abuse case involving a father who had been defiling his own two daughters for over three years was referred to us by Thika District Hospital. KCLAW took swift action and thanks to our intervention the father is now on remand pending prosecution. Both girls are now safe at home with their mother.

The father of twin boys had refused parental responsibility after abandoning the mother while pregnant. When the boys, at the age of 13, began demanding to meet their father, their mother did not know where to turn. The boys' school performance was beginning to suffer and eventually she sought help from KCLAW. We sent a letter to the father encouraging him to accept his parental responsibility. He immediately responded through his lawyers denying any knowledge of the twins or their mother. We persisted in the battle and, after many months tough negotiations, the father has finally accepted his sons and has even begun maintaining and supporting them through Secondary School.

A 12-year-old girl, who was raped by her own father, was rescued and sent to live with her grandfather together with her two younger siblings. Things were fine for a while until KCLAW was once again forced to intervene on her behalf when it became apparent that her uncle had been defiling her. Thanks to our intervention, the defilement stopped as the culprit was made aware that people know what has been happening. He is now thankfully keeping a safe distance from the girl. The local Chief & neighbours have been alerted so that they are prepared to intervene and arrest in case of any future attempt to defile this child, and her school has also been persuaded to give her support. The intervention, prevention and support efforts have been spearheaded by one of KCLAW's trained paralegals.

We received the case of a 10 year-old boy that was being sexually abused by three older boys for a period of around a year. The abuse was discovered by one of the teachers we trained during our sexual abuse workshop. The teacher used the tell-tail signs we had taught her to recognise the boy as a victim of sexual abuse. Through our advice, direction, encouragement and support, the matter was reported to police. The boys were arrested at the end of March 2009 and charged in Court. We are eagerly awaiting the outcome as we feel that a conviction in this case will send a strong deterrent message to other boys inclined to such crime.