KENYA-CULTURE: Caught Between Two Families

By Moyiga Nduru Reprint | | Print |

Moyiga Nduru

NAIROBI, Jul 18 1996 (IPS) - Abdia Derow Garad’s fate hangs in a medical laboratory in Finland, some thousands of kilometres away from her native Kenya.

Garad, a Kenyan Somali, is not sick. But, a Nairobi court has ordered that her blood, plus those of her relations, be tested to resolve a bizaare dispute in which two families claim that she is their daughter.

The dispute erupted in April after Garad was abducted by a group of armed Somali men from the place where she was looking after goats and sheep.

“They tied my hands behind my back at gunpoint and threatened to shoot me if I refused to go with them in their car,” she recalls.

“I tried to resist, and they fired a number of shots behind me. I got scared and passed out,” she says.

The “gang” bundled her into the car and drove away. Luckily enough, the news of her kidnapping reached home in a jiffy, thanks to the three girls with whom she was grazing.

Her parents filed a complaint with the police immediately and the “gang” leader, Noor Osman, was charged with abduction.

Due to the seriousness of the crime, and the failure of the local Somali chief to resolve the dispute, the case was transferred to the capital, Nairobi, about 500 kilometres north- east of her hometown of Wajir, which borders Somalia.

In Nairobi, she was placed under the care of the Imam of the Jamia Mosque, who is regarded as a neutral third party. While she is with him, no “parent” will have access to Garad until the case is decided.

Since the hearing began in April, Osman and his wife, Fatuma Made Ali, have insisted that the girl, whom they call Asili Noor Osman, is their child who got lost 13 years ago.

Fatuma Ali, 48, says the girl was her second child in a family of eight. She got lost when she was five, and Ali says she prayed and hoped for 13 years that her daughter would be found.

According to her, she saw her daughter for the first time in April. “I immediately recognised her as my daughter, because I suckled her, bathed her and fed her and no two women can give birth to one child,” she told the court.

But Habiba Bare Omar, from whose care the girl was snatched, says Garad is the fifth of her eight children. Speaking through a Somali interpreter, the 58-year-old widow says that she and her late husband, Derow Garad Omar, were the legal parents of the girl.

“I know that Abdia is my daughter, because I gave birth to her…and she has three marks on her body which I can identify,” she said.

“Both families claim the girl has marks on her body,” says Somali chief Ali Bullaow, who tried to settle the issue before it was transferred to Nairobi.

“We failed to resolve the dispute, because of the confusions inherent in the case,” says Bullaow, who also testified before the presiding judge, Justice Joyce Alouch, in Nairobi.

To break the ice, Alouch called in local genetic experts to test the blood samples of the two families to help her determine the girl’s real parents. The result was inconclusive.

In his initial findings, the director of the state-owned Kenya Medical Research Institute (KEMRI), Dr Davy Koech, says chemical analyses carried out could not conclusively resolve the parentage mystery.

He says he could not determine the gene make-up of one of the “parents” cited in the dispute, Derow Garad, since he is dead. But Dr Koech adds that the genes test he had personally carried out, using blood samples obtained from siblings from both families, pointed to Noor Osman and his wife as the parents of the girl.

Stunned, the lawyers representing Garad demanded a further test, preferably by a private laboratory.

Also shocked at Koech’s findings, Garad said: “Even if Dr Koech said Osman is my father I will not agree to live with him and his family. I appeal to the court to allow me to live with the people of my choice.”

She described Osman as “a thief” who abducted her from her family at gunpoint. “If he was my father, he would never have stripped me naked in the way he did,” she said.

Garad claims that during her captivity, Osman asked three women to scrutinise her body while she bathed, and took a photograph of her when she was naked.

Hassan Gabow, a researcher on Somali tradition here, says he suspects the two families are fighting over Garad, because the girl has come of age and is ready for marriage. “Each family is now counting the number of camels or cows she may bring into the family in terms of dowry once she gets married,” he told ips.

Recently, Garad tried in vain to end the court case arguing that she was not a piece of property to be sold in the market. “It is an attempt to possess or buy me like a chattel,” she says.

The application to terminate her case was filed by her “brother”, Abdi Derow Garad, and her lawyer, a noted Somali practitioner, Mohamed Ibrahim.

Under Kenyan law, where the voting age is 18, Garad is now considered legally old enough to decide her own future. “But not in Somali tradition. She’s still regarded a child; not mature enough to make her own decisions,” says Gabow.

The final decision will, however, lie with judge Alouch who is waiting for the results of the blood samples sent to Finland. The case resumes in September.