Children are the future of any nation, and governments have the cardinal duty to protect them. 

Article 53 of the Constitution decrees that every child has the right to a name and nationality from birth, free and compulsory basic education, nutrition, shelter and health care. 

Children must also be protected from abuse, neglect, harmful cultural practices, all forms of violence, inhuman treatment and punishment and hazardous or exploitative labour. 

They are also entitled to parental care and protection, which includes equal responsibility of the mother and father to provide for the child. 

Children should not be detained, except as a measure of last resort, and their best interests are of paramount importance in every matter concerning them. 

That is why our attention has been drawn to a report by the UN agency UNICEF that portrays Kenya as an unsafe country for raising children, with statistics showing that the government has neglected their welfare, leaving them more vulnerable to abuse. 

The government has been faulted for allocating a paltry Sh3 billion, the equivalent of 0.09 per cent of its 2022/23 financial budget of Sh3.3 trillion, to child welfare programmes. 

Due to the underfunding, the department responsible for children’s welfare has been unable to implement the programmes, including the hiring of social workers. 

The report, “The State of Children Protection Workforce in Kenya”, showed that four social service workers are assigned to serve 100,000 children, which is below the recommended rate of eight officers. 

Parents will be shocked to learn that in 39 counties, the government has assigned fewer than four social service workers per 100,000 children. 

Kenya National Bureau of Statistics data showed that 46.7 per cent of children in Kenya experience some form of violence before the age of 18. 

An estimated 23 per cent of girls and 6.4 per cent of boys experience sexual violence, while 48 per cent of boys and 30 per cent of girls experience physical violence. 

An estimated 22.9 per cent of Kenyan girls below 18 enter child marriage, while teen pregnancy is 14.8 per cent of girls 15-19. 

It is worrying that many of those responsible for child abuse are never brought to book.