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German Court frees Kenyan boy from orphanage
Brixton Mwenda, right, with his aunt Jacqueline Mbogo and her husband Walter Hellmann outside the children’s home where Mwenda was being held. Photo/CORRESPONDENT
A flurry of diplomatic activity has finally borne fruit and now the family of a Kenyan child that has spent over a year in a German children’s home is happy. Happy that justice has finally been done and their child is now at home.
On March 5, a higher court in Germany overturned an earlier ruling that had seen eight-year-old Brixton Mwenda spend close to two years in a care centre that is reserved for orphans, though he is not one. The ruling followed high level discussions between Kenyan ambassador in Berlin Mr Mutuma Kathurima and the German government.
Mwenda’s aunt Jacqueline Mbogo, who has tirelessly fought for his release from the children’s home, led happy relatives in reuniting with the boy.
She has been struggling to have her nephew released from the children’s home after her sister and mother of the boy died in Germany. However, the process has been agonisingly slow, and at one time, she almost lost hope.
“I am happy that the high court in Germany has decided for my nephew Brixton. Isn’t that really good news? I am really happy; I thank God for the miracle and also the support everyone gave me,” Jacqueline said in an e-mail from the German city of Essen a day before she collected the boy. The court allowed Jacqueline to become the boy’s guardian.
Jacqueline and her sister, Betty Mbogo, are from Maua, near Meru Town in Kenya's Eastern province. They moved to Germany after marrying citizens of that country.
However, Betty died at the Universitats Klinikum hospital in February 2007 after falling ill under what Jacqueline describes as “mysterious circumstances”. By that time, she had been separated from her husband for about a year and had just obtained a divorce.
But Betty’s former husband, Wolfang Rixen, sought to frustrate Jacqueline’s attempts to take care of the only child who was at the children’s home in Kreseld. Jacqueline had all along argued that relatives were willing to take care of the boy.
German officials said they were holding the boy because it was unclear who his father was. But Jacqueline says Mwenda’s father is a Kenyan businessman, Abraham Munyaga, who lives in Mombasa.
Mwenda left Kenya with his mother in December 2006 after she married Rixen. The family was living in Kreseld, North Rhine Westphalia, until Betty died. While Betty was in hospital, Mwenda then moved in briefly with his aunt in Essen in the same state.
However, the arrangement did not last long because Rixen went to court and obtained an order compelling Mwenda to be taken from his aunt’s home and into a children’s home pending the hearing of a case he had filed on the paternity of the boy.
Was married
He asked the court to give him custody of the child on grounds that he was married to the boy’s mother. According to Jacqueline, Betty’s last wish was to have her son taken from the custody of his stepfather because Rixen had not adopted the boy.
“My sister wanted to sever the relationship,” Jacqueline told the Nation from Germany sometime last year.
Mr Brinks Meier, the press attache who spoke on behalf of the head of the consular department at the German embassy in Nairobi, acknowledged that some of Mwenda’s relatives in Kenya approached the embassy for help, but said there was little the embassy could do as the case was yet to be resolved back in Germany. “The point of contention is paternity of the boy,” the official said.
Mr Kathurima also confirmed the state of affairs at that point. But the envoy all along believed it was only right that the boy be assisted to return to his relatives in Kenya.
The boy’s father
“The boy’s father is in Kenya as are his grandparents and other biological relatives,” Mr Kathurima said.
The German court may have considered the boy’s wish and that of his biological father who has been fighting to have him returned to his Kenya relatives.
Back in Kenya, Mr Munyaga is a delighted man, happy that the war he has been fighting, albeit far away from the real battle field, has finally been won.
“I sent hair pieces and even went through DNA tests, but the German courts had ignored all that. What I needed was to have my son out of the home and either flown back to me or stay with his auntie. I am happy that God has finally done that,” Mr Munyaga says.
On her appeal that finally went through, the court had listed Jacqueline as the first participant, her husband Walter Hellmann as second participant and Rixen and his new wife Michaela were named third and fourth respectively. Mr Munyaga is listed as seventh participant.
Jacqueline says she will be bringing Mwenda to Kenya in April for a celebration.