Raising children amid the vices in Nairobi’s residential estates

Congested Pipeline area in Embakasi South, Nairobi County. Bringing up a child may not be so easy in such environment [PHOTO:JAMES WANZALA/STANDARD]

NAIROBI: It is hard to be a parent in Kenya. The hard economic times, challenging socio-cultural transformation and the impact of information communication technology on society have left many parents struggling to bring up their children to become decent citizens.

Many parents have had to adopt a variety of approaches to steer their families through the minefield of modern-day living.

However, parents in some Nairobi estates must try twice as hard to keep their families together amid such developments, which are not without consequences.

Raising children in these estates has become a nightmare. In some middle-class estates in Nairobi from Buru Buru, to Lang’ata and Donholm, parents no-longer just worry about their children being knocked down by speeding matatus, being abducted by thugs or getting hooked on glue.

They are now afraid that the young ones could be lured into indecency through the mushrooming estate bars, cyber cafes, easily available pornographic material and brothels.

PERVADING INEQUITIES

According to George Kassim, a resident of Donholm estate, parents must watch over their children day and night for fear of them being sucked into the iniquities that now pervade the estate.

“In years gone by, child-raising was guided by respect for elders, honesty, personal hygiene and fear of God,” he says, “today, you need to teach your children how to avoid people peddling sex, pornography, drugs and alcohol, and this can be particularly difficult in an environment where pervasiveness is the order of the day.”

These middle-class estates have been hard hit by the proliferation of unregulated bars, night clubs and cyber cafés where children can easily access X-rated materials including pornography despite regulations such as the Alcoholic Drinks Control Act 2010, which establishes the location and hours of operation of such hangouts.

“In Donholm, there is a bar at nearly every corner and they operate 24-7. Forget the dangerous trappings that come with such establishments, the noise alone can drive you crazy,” says Kassim.

A little past 9pm on a weekday, prostitutes descend on the Donholm Estate like a pack of hungry hounds.

The Mama Mboga kiosks, which sell groceries, are converted into sex dens.

For the untrained eye, the flimsy-clad ladies whispering and beckoning to men passing by could be Mama Mboga working late, however for those with insight into Donholm’s runaway sex trade, they know what that means. For as little as Sh20, the prostitutes offer sex to willing clients, right inside the kiosks.

The traders have a daunting task cleaning the mess each morning following the prostitutes’ overnight exploits.

“I open my kiosk to find it full of used condoms,” says Mary Atieno, a grocer in the estate. “The scene is as unsightly as it is disgusting. It is unbelievable that this is happening here where we are bringing up families.”

A resident, Robert Ochieng’ captures this menace: “It can be very embarrassing when you are with your spouse, your children or even your mother and the prostitutes call out to you. Just try and imagine it...ladies coming to grab you forcefully as they always do late in the night. Your partner or children may think you know these people.”

SCOURGE IN SOCIETY

“At the end of the day, it is not a trade where people are in pursuit of money. It is a scourge affecting a whole society,” says Gabriel Kabatesi, a local pastor.

But it is the mushrooming night clubs within the estates - replete with strip-clubs and brothels - that have left parents very worried.

“We don’t know what our children especially the teenagers could be involved in with the estate awash with bars and night clubs,” says James Karogo, a teacher at a local school.

“It is certainly difficult to raise a family in this kind of environment. We don’t know what they are getting into when away from us,” he adds.

In Tassia, Embakasi a family lives adjacent to a strip club. Activities at the club, which has premises on the first, second and third floors, can be seen from the family’s living room.

Richard Momanyi, a resident of Greenfields Estate, complains that his four-year-old son is a victim of the proliferation of bars in the estate.

“Revellers who are known to my son often send him to buy cigarettes, I don’t know what else they send him to get them,” he says.

Within the estates, brothels and strip clubs easily find residence as they come under different guises such as massage parlours and gymnasiums. By having such ‘innocent’ names, teenagers and other youngsters get attracted to the dens, and within no time get hooked without their parents suspecting anything.

CONDUITS FOR PROSTITUTION

“On paper they are massage parlours or gyms, but in reality they are sex dens,” says a senior City County Inspectorate official who requested for anonymity.

When parents are reluctant to give their children pocket money, they can quickly offer their services at these parlours for a fee and their parents will never find out.

Rising unemployment on the one hand and a growing middle-class with more disposable income on the other, has encouraged the vice in estates, as it has created a willing seller—willing buyer scenario in the sex trade, says the official.

Besides the rising number of bars in the estates, which are conduits for prostitution, Olungah says such acts have been spurred by permissibility in society.

Olungah says breakdown in parenting is also fuelling vices since most parents do not spend enough with their children.

Psychiatrists and other experts says the country faces a bleak future if urgent steps are not taken to address the problem of moral decadence.

Psychiatrist Fredrick Owiti says the proliferation of bars, nightclubs and other illicit entertainment joints in residential areas is a pointer to how low the society has sunk.

“We are staring at a scenario where commercial interests override everything else. The situation is made worse by corruption where the law simply doesn’t exist,” he says.

The consequence is that there will emerge a whole generation with tainted morals.

“You are looking at a situation where not only children are exposed to moral iniquities but their parents too. Therefore, you end up with completely dysfunctional families,” says Dr Owiti of Retreat Rehab Centre in Nairobi.

Owiti describes a local secondary school where the whole of the Form Four class smoke marijuana.

“When we followed each student we discovered each of them hailed from a dysfunctional family where the father didn’t even know who paid school fees,” he says.

“And when we followed those families further we discovered that they were in an environment where permissiveness was the order of the day,” he adds.

He describes a scenario where the father is always drunk because the bar is just behind his house.

“In those circumstances the father spends too little time with his children and the outcome is a generation which is growing up to become like their parents,” he says.

He says a concerted effort is needed to tackle what he terms a runaway train.

“The fact that the law doesn’t seem to work is even more worrying because it could only mean a slow slide into a lawless society. The media and other channels must be exploited to point out such societal ills,” he says.