She flew all the way from South
Africa to ask a Kenyan court to grant her custody of her four-year- old
son.
And the court yesterday allowed
the 29-year-old Zimbabwean woman to stay with the boy, albeit temporarily.
The child’s Kenyan father
had brought him from South Africa to live with his elderly parents in Nakuru
after he fell out with the mother.
The woman’s lawyer, Ms Elizabeth
Wangari, convinced acting senior
resident magistrate Judicaster Nthuku that the
mother would provide for, protect her son and allow her former husband to
visit him.
The woman says she fell in love
with the Kenyan in South Africa in 2009.
After they had the baby, their
relationship turned sour after returning from a visit to the man’s family in
Nakuru’s Free Area.
She says she had never imagined
that one day she would be fighting to keep the boy.
Yesterday, her former
mother-in-law denied her access to the child despite being served with the
court order.
She said she would only
release the child in the presence of his mother’s lawyer.
ILLEGAL DOCUMENTS
In court, lawyer Wangari had
urged the magistrate to restore the mother’s parental rights, arguing the boy
had been left with his relatives as the father was out of the country.
Her client, who arrived in Kenya
during the Easter holidays, said she had taken care of the child without her
former husband’s help.
“He worked with my sister’s
husband and that is how we met and everything moved so quickly before I knew
it, we had moved in together when I was eight months pregnant,” she said.
Four months later, she realised
they were not compatible and they separated but informally agreed that he would
be allowed to visit the child, she said.
In her papers presented to the
court, she claimed her former husband falsely acquired documents that
enabled him to travel back to Kenya with the boy.
Investigation
She urged the court to order an
investigation to establish how their son was issued with a new passport when
she still has his original one and birth certificate.
Before she went to court, she had
shocked her in-laws when she arrived unannounced at their new home at
Pipeline estate, but they would hear none of her demands to have her son back.
The child’s father was yet to
file his response in court as the matter had just been lodged and heard for the
first time.
Chapisha Maoni