BY NT CORRESPONDENT.
Two women have been sentenced to thirty years (30) imprisonment by a Nairobi court for child trafficking and child neglect.
Isabella Wambani Walubengo alias Consepta Mutenyo Namalwa Walubengo alias Mutenyo Walubengo Davis alias EMM and and Margaret Kerubo Nyakoe alias Ma alias Magi were sentenced after trial magistrate Martha Mutuku found them guilty of more than 10 counts of offences.
In her judgment, Mutuku ruled that the prosecution had proved the charges against the two beyond reasonable doubt.
The two were arrested on June 2017 in Diani, Nairobi county where there were blaster charged with the offences.
They pleaded not guilty to the charges but were denied bail pending the determination of the case.
However, Isabella(US citizen) and Kerubo were acquitted of four counts of offences.
In her acquittal, the magistrate ruled that the baby, aged below two years at the time the offence was committed, was never found.
Through lawyer Dunstan Omari, Isabella mitigated that she was only rescuing the minors from harsh Bukusu cultural beliefs.
Omari told the court that his client and the children in question are of the same family.
“The children was born through incest by her niece who got pregnant and wanted to terminate the pregnancies,” Omari told the court during mitigation.
The third child was born by her 14 year old sister who got pregnant by her a 16 year old boy.
Omari said further that his client and the mothers come from the Bukusu subtribe of the Luhya community where culture and custom practices on children born out of wedlock is still intact.
“Those children are defined as taboo and the only option is to kill them,” the court heard.
Omari told the court that his 46 year old client has two children and stays in the State of Florida. She is married to American Marine based in Kuwait.
While pleading for a non-custodial sentence, he submitted that the accused lost her mother on November 15, while she was in custody.
She has since suffered a stroke, acute depression due to high blood pressure and acute back ache occasioned by a broken limb.
“My client took up this child after the biological mother abandoned him knowing it would be killed and took off to Dubai and has never come back to date,” the court heard.
He pleaded with the court to consider the actual circumstances and the intent of why the accused took that bold step to help the children.
The second accused, Kerubo mitigated that she is a mother of two and guardian two child children belonging to her sister.
She pleaded for leniency saying that she was just a house help when she was arrested and is the only provider for the four children.
