What was supposed to be a blessing for Ms Mellen Mose of Nyangusu village in Kisii County has turned out to be her misery.
The mother of three has developed high blood pressure as she wonders what miracle will free her daughter from a prison in South Sudan.
Her first-born child, Emily Kerubo Nyakwara, was sentenced to a five-year imprisonment in the foreign land last October in what she alleges are “false charges” of child molestation.
The family says Kerubo is already serving the sentence.
They are now appealing to the Kenyan government to intervene and free their daughter, maintaining that the child molestation charges were trumped up by the parents and Juba-based authorities.
Kisii Woman Representative Doris Aburi has already raised the matter in Parliament and wants the government through the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to pursue the case.
“I am having blood pressure to manage and I have undergone a lot of stress. My daughter was my hope but Satan is a liar,” said Ms Mose.
The distraught mother explains that her daughter was convicted by a South Sudanese court in October last year.
Kerubo, 25, graduated with a degree in Education at the University of Nairobi in 2018. On January 12, 2022, Kerubo left Kenya for South Sudan to teach kindergarten children.
She had been approached by an educationist-cum-businesswoman who owns Mercy British, an international school in Juba. She began her new job on January 17, 2022. Her job also entailed changing the children’s diapers.
While at it, she noticed that a baby girl in her class wore a ‘charm’ around her waist.
Kerubo reportedly informed the school’s management, which then advised the child’s parent to remove the chain.
The parent reacted by withdrawing her child from the school for a fortnight, and was hostile towards the teacher.
Upon the return of her daughter on February 28, 2022, the parent reportedly gave express instructions to all teachers to never change the toddler’s diaper.
This led the child to stay with a soaked diaper for long hours.
According to Ms Aburi, who on February 23, 2023 tabled the plight of Kerubo before the National Assembly, the parent later accused the teacher of molesting her child.
“Two days later, the mother reported that Ms Nyakwara had molested the child; citing rashes and bruises around the girl’s private parts,” Ms Aburi informed the National Assembly.
The teacher was arrested and kept in custody before she was convicted in October.
“The medical report indicated that there was no molestation and attributed the bruises to the long wearing of diapers,” Ms Aburi said.
She explained: “Despite the fact that Ms Nyakwara was vindicated by the medical report and witness testimonies, she was still charged under unclear circumstances and convicted to a five-year imprisonment and a fine of 700,000 Sudanese pounds; an equivalent of $1,200.”
Ms Aburi has since called on the parliamentary departmental Committee on Defence, Intelligence and Foreign Affairs to give explanations regarding what she termed as “unfair conviction”.
In particular, the lawmaker wants the committee to provide details of the circumstances under which the Kenyan teacher was convicted “without evidence contrary to the rule of law and principles of natural justice”.
She also demanded to know of the immediate interventions that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs is intending to make to render justice for Kerubo.
Lastly, Ms Aburi wants to know what measures the government has put in place to make sure that the welfare of other Kenyans in South Sudan is safeguarded. BY DAILY NATION