Left behind in Kenya, the children of British soldiers struggle to find their identity

NANYUKI, Kenya (AP) — Margaret Wandia became pregnant after a week-long relationship with a British soldier who was training near her community in Kenya. They met when she was working in a bar in her early 20s. She knew little about him. He left her a mixed-race child.

This son is now 26 years old and is involved in a Kenyan lawyer’s efforts to bring a number of such children to the UK. The aim is to confront authorities with hundreds of such cases reported over the years, locate the fathers and seek their support.

It’s a long shot after years of attempts by human rights groups to hold the British military and its personnel accountable for their actions during weeks of training in Kenya – including alleged rape – and the children they left behind.

The two countries’ $44 million defense cooperation agreement was renewed in 2021. It allows up to 10,000 British forces to train in Kenya for eight weeks each year. Kenya’s mixed-race children are part of broader concerns about the British mission, particularly ongoing allegations of rape against local girls and women.

Like many mixed-race children in predominantly conservative Kenya, Wandia’s son Louise Gitonga felt excluded from society and excluded from educational and employment opportunities because he was “too white.”

“I have an identity crisis that drove me to alcoholism,” the unemployed Gitonga told The Associated Press at his home in downtown Nanyuki. “Everywhere I go, people call me a white man. Others call me an albino. These names cause me great pain and pain.”

His mother remembered taking him to a boarding school and having to pay higher fees for her white child. She later married a local farmer, Paul Wachira, who recognized the challenges of raising a biracial child.

“Sometimes I had to hide him from the rest of the family at gatherings to avoid many questions because he looked very different from his siblings,” Wachira said.

Kenyan lawyer Kelvin Kubai represents ten of these children of visiting British troops. He claimed that not all of her parents’ relationships were consensual. Working with a British law firm, which he declined to name, he hopes to bring some of the children to Britain next year and bring them to trial.

“You know, such children don’t know the circumstances under which they were born,” Kubai said.

He hopes they will receive citizenship. Under British law, children of British citizens are entitled to British citizenship and care for both parents if they are under 18 years old. Seven of the children Kubai represents are under 18 years old. For those over 18, the journey is a search for identity and identity support.

Kubai is also raising money – $4,600 so far – to conduct DNA testing to find the children’s fathers.

The identity crisis affects children of white fathers. Kubai said he had never encountered children of black British fathers. “They wouldn’t be easily identified and wouldn’t be discriminated against,” he said.

A spokesman for the British High Commission said in a statement to the AP that it and the British military training mission in Kenya “cooperate fully with local child support authorities where there are claims relating to paternity.” Those authorities did not respond to questions.

But Kenyan mothers and civil society groups have long said British authorities have provided little or no help.

Jenerica Namoru, 29, has a 5-year-old child after dating a Brit from the training mission. The man’s name appears on the birth certificate as the father after he consented and submitted his documents for the trial.

Namoru said the man initially accepted the child and communicated with her, but refused to send financial support. She sought help at the offices of the British Army Training Unit Kenya. She said they weren’t listening.

“Sometimes they even stopped me from entering the gate,” she said. She is now represented by Kubai.

The history of mixed-race children in the area around the British military training area dates back to the 1960s, when Kenya was under British rule. Those born decades ago are also part of the current effort for justice and support.

David Mwangi Macharia, 68, is nicknamed “British” because of his light skin tone. He said his mother had a relationship with a British soldier. He works as a night watchman and part-time bricklayer after dropping out of elementary school because he was ridiculed and discriminated against.

“(Kenyans) always think I can’t do menial jobs even though I have no education,” Macharia said. He even found it difficult to get along with his dark-skinned siblings.

Attempts to hold British forces accountable have long had little success, Kenyans say.

Marion Mutugi, commissioner of the Kenya National Commission on Human Rights, said relationships between British soldiers and local women ranged from consensual to transactional to coercive.

The commission says it documented over 200 cases of rape involving British troops between 1983 and 2003 and is continuing to collect data.

The British Ministry of Defense dismissed the rape cases as “spurious” and an investigation by the Royal Military Police in 2007 resulted in neither compensation nor justice for the victims, the KNCHR said in a report to the Kenyan parliament opposing one earlier renewal of the two countries protested ‘ defense agreement.

“(Authorities) also interfere in investigations by endangering the local community. Human rights defenders on the ground are being threatened and intimidated by both BATUK and the Kenyan Armed Forces and Kenyan officials to ensure that justice is not achieved,” Mutugi said.

“Our opinion to the commission was that they wanted to put a band-aid on a wound instead of tearing it up, treating it and operating on it,” the commissioner added.

The British High Commission said it was investigating the allegations. Kenyan authorities have never responded to the allegations.

The best-known case is that of Agnes Wanjiru, who was killed in 2012 after an evening in the company of British soldiers. An investigation in 2019 concluded that Wanjiru was murdered by British soldiers, but no suspect was charged. A public hearing by the Kenyan parliament’s defense committee that began in May revived the investigation.

Kubai said he hoped to give the Kenyan children of British soldiers a much-needed sense of identity.

“What we are bringing to the British court is not just the question of rape, but the question of these children who happen to be prisoners of an identity that they did not choose for themselves,” he said.

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