On July 14, 1965, 24-year-old Rebecca Kimeu delivered a bouncing baby boy at Pumwani Maternity Hospital. She named him Mutua.
But despite sharing a brief moment with the healthy boy and holding him in her hands, hours later they were informed the boy was no more- that he was born prematurely and died right away, yet the hospital management had admitted he was in perfect health.
They never had a chance to see the body- staff stubbornly blocked them from seeing the body of their son, only to learn later that they were victims of child theft. There was little they could do to follow-up the matter at the time.
Today, 52 years later, the couple are still saddened by the incident that rekindles memories of joy cut short.
Dangerous racket
The child abduction syndicate is still vibrant. It is a racket involving simpletons as well as high-profile subjects going by the charging of wife of Televangelist Gilbert Deya and his wife Mary Deya for child theft.
It is this dragon of child theft that a multifaceted syndicate that a tech-savvy trio hope to slay if their Software Programme is widely embraced.
“Child Protection Report (2006-2016)” released last year indicated 528 cases of child trafficking and abduction were reported to them. The organisation’s Executive Director Martha Sunda says the cases included children stolen from hospitals and maternity wards.
African Network for the Prevention and Protection Against Child Abuse and Neglect reported last year that over 20, 000 children in Kenya, mainly girls under 18 years, are trafficked to work as house girls.
Sunda says children trafficking and abuse cases is high — and so is demand for help — but response is often constrained. “In 2016, a total of 938,909 attempts were made to reach the helpline, but only 43 per cent of these were responded to”.
Trio proprietors of Data Vault System Enterprises, the brainchild of Malaika Application that is geared towards mitigating child theft, trafficking, abduction and abuse says after all there is hope of slaying the racket that has apparently outfoxed security machinery.
They have developed an application that requires tags attached to subjects and a phone to monitor new-borns while in hospitals and safeguard them from lurking traffickers.
“In Hospitals and with an electronic device tag on the infant’s ankle, and similar wristband on mother with their biodata captured in Android phone enable vigilance of child’s movement and averts mix-ups which are also common in maternity,” says the company Director of Operations, Vince Sila.
The tags are built to store child and mother’s information that include their photos, names, mother or guardian’s ID number, phone number, hospital room and bed number, gender, visible marks if any on born child. If the child is still born, such is captured and scanned.
Unique serial number encoded on the silicon tags deter anyone from cutting and also make it impossible to replace it once cut.
“When an expectant mother checks in hospital, her details are captured in an android phone. This information is then scanned and stored in a tag that is fixed on her wrist at the hospitals’ expense. When the child is born, their details are also captured, scanned and stored in an ankle tag and the information in both tags paired,” says Kate Ongeti, manager of Jacaranda Hospital that is piloting the application.
Ongeti says in case a mother suspects mix-up after nursery services, she can have the child and her tag scanned to confirm if they match.
“Tags are water proof and once locked on child and mother cannot be removed unless cut. And no child can be allowed to leave hospital without the tag intact. During discharge, both tags are scanned and if a match is conformed by a green light, the tags are cut off and dumped. No other gadget can access the biodata of the two,” says Ongeti.
Jacaranda Hospital, she says, has not experienced child theft but was prompted to embrace the application by a thriving racket of child theft.
But past the maternity hurdle, the child is more exposed to kidnappers, traffickers and rogues house-helps, calling for a tight technology-based surveillance.
“Hundreds of families in Kenya are in agony searching for their missing children. Not less than 35 cases are reported to police stations across Nairobi every month. That means a child goes missing in Nairobi daily. Hundreds more cases go unreported or improperly recorded,” says Sila.
Aid identification
They have followed up infant-theft mitigation application with “Malaika Trace” with wide spectrum to “Aid positive identification from life to death”. If adopted by hospitals, schools, police and state agencies concerned with child protection, this will muzzle child trafficking and loss, they say.
“This will need smartphones and tags either in form of a wristband or necklace that would cost only Sh200. The tags would contain a scan of the child’s iris. The App has missing button linked up with police, hospitals and Childline Kenya to help them identify the lost child or in case of accident and victim is unconscious or dead,” says Sila.
And should house-helps run away with the child, parents can use the App to develop a PDF page with information about the child and culprit and share it on social media platforms effortlessly.
“There is an option to put the description of child from last seen location and time, height, complexion, weight, kind of dressing. The child’s info is also uploaded on the missing child watch-list server. This is a web-based server that all government agencies concerned with child protection will have access to,” he says.
Police and hospitals can be equipped with Near Field Communication-enabled smartphones that have children details captured.
When they bump upon lost children or when kids are admitted in hospital unconscious, the health facilities linked up with the technology can identify their kin and medical history for emergency treatment by scanning their tags or iris in case tag has been destroyed by attackers.
“Police or hospital will scan the tag and immediately, information is sent to parents indicating where the child is, with contact to call back. Information dispatched to parent or guardian will have a Google map location.
This also applies to adults to avoid cases of unidentified bodies or patients lying in hospitals unconscious. Relatives without Smart Phones receive alerts via text message informing them their location and their situation” he says.
When parent reports a missing or kidnapped child through a “missing button” on the app, the information is dispatched to mission child server at the children’s department. But all along such information remains private to parents or guardians until when a child is reported missing. That information is deleted when the lost child is found.
Sila says though lost and found child’s information is cleared from police and Childline Kenya servers, in hospitals it remains accessible through their gadgets for emergency purposes when such person is admitted while unconscious in parents’ absence.
Proper systems
He adds; “The iris has 260 matching points compared to 30 for fingerprints, it is faster to capture and match, more protected than fingerprints and ideal for children who before age 12 have not stabilised fingerprints but very vulnerable to trafficking. Kids protected that way cannot be smuggled across borders with this technology if proper systems are in place”.
Sunda says Childline Kenya is also using piloting the App to facilitate reporting child abuse.
“Informers can take a photo or video, give location and nature of abuse and receive feedback on action taken,” he says.
