Bungoma South deputy county commissioner Duncan Okwach has urged residents to respect children’s rights and ensure their safety.
Okwach said people who are supposed to protect children, including their parents, siblings, neighbours, teachers and guardians, were the ones violating their rights. He said this has led to a high number of defilement cases and teenage pregnancies in the county.
Okwach cautioned parents against forming kangaroo courts to resolve defilement cases.
He spoke on Wednesday at James Ryken Centre of Hope, while celebrating the Day of the African Child. This year's theme is 'Thirty Years After the Adoption of the Charter: Accelerate the Implementation of Agenda 2040 for an Africa Fit for Children’.
Okwach warned organisations setting up illegal children’s homes in shopping centres, especially in Kanduyi, to stop. He said most of them do not have the interests of the children at heart but are out to do business.
The administrator said child labour has become a menace in Bungoma town.
He cautioned parents against sending their children to the streets of Bungoma town to hawk.
Kenya Children’s Assembly governor for Bungoma Catherine Awino urged the government to work towards hastening the full realisation of children’s rights by 2040. Awino is a Form 1 student at Bungoma Baptist Girls High School.
