Yes, I left her for dead, but I now want Baby Malaika in my arms once more

Grace Mwadziwe Mwinga abandoned her new-born daughter in a hole shortly after giving birth five years ago, hoping the girl would die.

The baby almost died. An animal bit off her right hand and inflicted deep injuries on her face. But before the brief chapter of her life could be closed, a Good Samaritan came in the form of a herdsman who was attending a call of nature as he cut livestock fodder on March 10, 2012.

The herdsman, Mr Tsuma Mwandalo, heard the toddler’s feeble wails and rescued her. Soon the baby was on her way to the then Coast General Hospital where she was stabilised and operated on. She would later be named Baby Malaika (Angel in Kiswahili), gaining celebrity status and gripping the nation’s attention.

After spending two months in hospital, during which she dominated local headlines as her progress was monitored, Mji wa Salama Children’s Home offered her a home away from her village in Rabai, Kilifi County. Five years on, she has grown into a bubbly kindergarten pupil.

But Ms Mwinga now wants Baby Malaika back and regrets her actions.

She is out of Shimo la Tewa prison after being released about two years before she completed a five-year jail term following her imprisonment for child neglect. To Ms Mwinga, it is important to have the baby back because “she is my blood”.

“I miss my child and I love her. What happened, happened, and I am a new person. I had another child after I was released from prison. If I was evil, why did I give birth again and never killed this other baby?” she told Lifestyle recently when we visited her at her home in Bwagamoyo, Kilifi County.

The children’s home also agrees with the idea of Baby Malaika integrating with her family. However, it insists on following due process.

A source at the facility, who did not wish to be named because of the sensitivity of the matter involving a minor, said it will take more than the mother’s wish to have the baby released.

“We have to get a court order or a letter from the Children’s Department. She also has to bring a document to show she is her real mother, or a DNA test is conducted. An enquiry about her (the mother’s) life will be established due to the fact that she wanted to kill Malaika,” the source said.

ABANDONEMENT

As the world celebrates Mother’s Day , children like Malaika will be away from the embrace of the women who are naturally expected to hold them close to their bosoms — but for one reason or the other they don’t.

Abandonment ranks highly among cases of child abuse in Kenya. For instance, in 2011 it was second to neglect in the national tally of child abuse with 2,752 cases recorded by the Children Services Department. Neglect had 38,325 cases while the third was sexual abuse with 710 cases.

Thanks to the treatment she has received at the children’s home, Malaika did not appear worried even one bit by the abandonment controversy surrounding her life when we visited her at the facility, located at Tudor Estate in Mombasa County, which she has called home ever since she left hospital. There, she has been nicknamed “Ika”, the short form of “Malaika”.

The scars on her nose and the left side of her face have almost cleared, with small spots taking the place of the numerous stitches that doctors made while treating the severe facial injuries she had sustained.

Alongside us were people from Virtual Volunteers Foundation who were paying a visit to the facility that currently houses 74 children.

On seeing the visitors, Malaika jumped up and down, aware that they were her visitors because ever since her admission, she has received numerous guests.

When the time came to cut a cake, she used her left hand for the task. She also used the stub that remained of her right arm – which was left after the rest of the arm was amputated – to carry biscuits and sweets.

Her care givers said she is leading a normal life.

“She is an aggressive, loving and happy child. She is aware that she has one hand,” said one of the guardians.

She sat on a Lifestyle writer’s lap and said she wanted to become a journalist. But when a volunteer doctor arrived and joked with the children, asking who aspires to become a doctor, Malaika ran to her and changed her mind, shouting that she wanted to become a doctor and inject children.

“None of the children make fun of the fact that she has one hand. She lifts her left hand easily but when she tries to do the same with her right hand she looks confused,” said the care giver.

Miles away from the children’s facility, the family of Ms Mwinga recently met to discuss whether they would take up Malaika or give her up for adoption.

Those in the meeting included Ms Mwinga’s parents and brother. None of Malaika’s family members has ever visited her in the facility but Ms Mwinga said she would not wish to have the baby taken away.

“We want her. She is my baby despite everything. I want to thank everyone for taking care of her. She has four siblings who also miss her as none had ever seen her. I will take care of them because I am a hard worker. Let no one judge me based on my past,” Ms Mwinga said.

LEGAL HURDLES

Asked if she knew the legal hurdles she will go through before getting the child, she answered: “I don’t know any procedure of having her.”

Interviews with neighbours suggested that before the incident in 2012 Ms Mwinga’s marriage was troubled and she was said to have got pregnant while she was away from her husband. 

It is a past she told Lifestyle she did not wish to discuss “because it pains me”.

Part of Ms Mwinga’s initial defence before Senior Resident Magistrate Sylvia Wewa at the Kaloleni Law Courts was that it was the estranged father of the child who dumped her in the forest — but this did not seem convincing.

The daring abandonment in 2012 left tongues wagging due to the precarious condition in which the child was found. Among those who visited Malaika in hospital at the time was Medical Services Minister Anyang’ Nyong’o.

Medics said that she was rescued weighing 1.9 kilogrammes, and that after a month in hospital, she had shot up to 2.4 kilos. By the time she was 10 months, she weighed 7.4 kilos, which was seen as a miraculous recovery.

Though the parties in her story have not agreed on whether to return the baby to her mother or not, psychology experts warn that precaution ought to be taken if at all she will be returned.

Mr James Mbugua, a psychology lecturer at Africa Nazarene University, said Malaika should never be given back to her mother.

“I would actually say a big no because that would be traumatising the child. Already this is a child who has been in a children’s home. The story she will probably be hearing as she grows up is that her mother abandoned her,” he told Lifestyle.

Mr Mbugua noted that unless it is established that there was a health concern like postpartum depression that led to the act, under no circumstances should Ms Mwinga have Baby Malaika back.

“If that one (postpartum depression) is not the case, then I would say giving this child to the mother would be traumatising her. Remember, the mother is not just the person who brings up the child. A mother is a care giver; somebody who has been there in the growing up of this child. And if this child has found a life elsewhere, it will be good to have her move on,” he said.

Mr Mbugua supported the jail term Ms Mwinga was given for the offence.

“There are situations whereby a jail term would actually be necessary, like a young girl who decides to just wake up and leave the baby while she is very much aware of the act — probably to push on with her life. That is somebody who had all awareness of her mental abilities. But for a mother, probably going through postpartum depression, I wouldn’t recommend a jail term,” he said.

Ms Maryanne Njihia, who has just wound up her studies in counselling psychology at the Kenya Methodist University and is currently interning at the Kenyatta National Hospital, said that the circumstances under which Malaika was abandoned should be addressed first before she can be returned to her mother.

“If it was about poverty, what has been done about it? Is she able now to take care of the baby? If there was no man in her life, has it been addressed? If she was suffering from postpartum depression, by now she should have healed,” she said.

Cases of abandonment in Kenya are plenty. Files from children’s courts handling adoption matters are replete with instances of children who were left to their own devices by their parents and were later taken to children’s homes before finding benevolent people to adopt them.

ADOPTION OPTION

In one case, a baby born by a woman who had fled from Molo to Limuru due to the clashes that followed the 2007 General Election was abandoned in a house of a woman who gave the internally displaced mother a place to live. The boy was later taken to a children’s home in Nyeri until October 2015 when High Court judge Aggrey Muchelule allowed a 45-year-old Dutch woman to adopt the boy.

In another instance, a girl who was born prematurely at Mbagathi District Hospital on July 26, 2013 was abandoned by her mother while in the hospital’s new born unit. The girl was later taken to Thomas Barnardo House until January 2015 when High Court judge Margaret Muigai let an unmarried Kenyan woman adopt her.

For the families that adopt such children, Mr Mbugua said they need to be careful how they treat them.

“The child has missed out on the warm, trusting environment of a home: that care, that motherly touch. And then as much as possible if there are other children in the family, this child should be helped to fit in with the other members of the family,” he said.

The thought of her child being adopted has not settled well with Ms Mwinga, who also reckons that people have judged her too harshly.

“People are just judging me without knowing what I was going through at that moment. But I definitely want to take her back, she is my blood. I don’t know her name since I had not given her any. Instead of being jailed, where I was tormented, the government should have rehabilitated me,” she said.

Ms Njihia, the counselling psychology trainee, agrees that the society tends to treat such women unfairly.

“We are so judgemental to an extent that we don’t understand them. We judge them very harshly and that’s why they’re not able to cope with the situations. My advice to the society is for us to try and understand these women and support them; because through that, those motherly instincts will come back if they are supported,” she said.