The new Sodom and Gomorrah?

• Lack of privacy within internal refugee camps is turning resident children into decadent imps
• The young here record everything their parents do, then re-enact the same with their peers during play time. Urged on by their childish innocence, these children are teetering on the edge of a moral dilemma beyond imagination

In 2007, Angel Kimani was a happily married mother of two, living comfortably in a two-bedroom house in the outskirts of Eldoret town. She had seen her children grow from meddlesome toddlers to disciplined youngsters who toed the Christian line she had weaned them on. She had every reason to believe that her children would grow up to become shining beacons of excellence.

Then in December that year, Kenya went to the polls — and, soon after, to the dogs. As the political chieftains quarrelled in Nairobi over who had won the elections, Ms Kimani’s neighbours, people with whom she had co-existed peacefully, suddenly rediscovered a primitive, tribal militancy that had been hidden in their chests for decades.

And when a gang of agitated youths knocked on her door that dreary January morning in 2008, she knew that she had to pack up and leave her comfortable abode or risk rape, plunder, and murder.

That is how she found her way — her husband and their two children in tow — into the grubby tent camp of Yamumbi, which was set up to house the internally displaced victims of the post-election madness of 2007/8.

It is now three years and Ms Kimani has settled down to the humdrum, commonplace emptiness of her humble existence. However, something disturbs her whenever she pulls her wooden stool outside her polythene structure to watch her children play.

“Their little games, even in their innocence, are worrying,” she says. “Their is a lot of sexual expression in the simple things they do.”

And she is right. Scenes of children climbing on each others’ backs, all the while calling each other pet names that are the reserve of lovers, are a common occurrence here.

Ms Kimani says it is disheartening to watch seven-year-olds entwined in a sexual position in broad daylight, and blames it all on the lack of privacy within the tents.

“It’s unfortunate that this is the kind of generation the circumstances in this camp have forced us to bring up,” says Ms Kimani’s neighbour Mary Mwangi. “The only respite is that most of them are still young and do not understand what they are doing, but it is just a matter of time before they grow up, and then there will be no stopping them.”

A tall order

For parents, privacy during intimacy inside the tents is a tall order. As much as some have tried to re-structure their lifestyles to accommodate the inconvenience caused by the turn of events, the effects of alcoholism, a pastime for many here, have torn down the weak barriers that the tents can offer.

“When drunk, some men forget that their children are barely asleep a metre away. Some even reach out for their wives in full view of the children,” says Ms Mwangi.

This, she adds, has led to social friction as women who can’t stand such drunken sexual exposure choose to seek refuge elsewhere to spare their children the shame.

“It’s just a matter of time before all the youngsters are exposed to this sickening decadence,” says the IDPs’ North Rift secretary general, Mr Patrick Muchiri. “Just take your time and watch the kind of games children play out here. You will not believe it.”

Mr Muchiri says even grown up women are victims of the irresponsible behaviour men (and some women) exhibit when drunk. And the short-term solution, he adds, is to keep the young ones away from the tents as much as possible.

Sending children away from the camps has been precipitated by reduced food rations from the government. Therefore, parents cart their offspring off to live with relatives or to eke out a living elsewhere... anywhere.

“Four of my children have been taken in by relatives,” says a woman, only identified herself as Wanjiku, as she cuddles her fifth child, Samuel Mwangi, born in her tent and who turned one year last November 11.

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