The happiness of life is being able to be recognized as a citizen of a country or nation but for thousands of members of the Pemba community that has been a nightmare, at least in Kenya. For many years’ members of the community whose population is estimated at more than 8,000 and are scattered across Lamu, Kilifi, Mombasa and Kwale counties life has been miserable. Their main economic activity is deep sea fishing and they contribute immensely in the country’s income from the sea.
Mrs. Rahma Aboo, a mother of five from Mayungu village in Kilifi North Sub County narrated how she has suffered over the years in the hands of security personnel yet she was born in Kenya. “I was born here in Kenya and I do not know any other place to call home. It is sad that I am suffering in my own country and have been denied even an identity card,” he told a security community of parliament in Kilifi town three days ago.
She adds that doing business and even owning property has been a nightmare for her and many others and they regularly face intimidation and persecution from police officers who demand hefty bribes from them so as they are not deported to Tanzania. “Last year the police arrested me and they took me to Lunga Lunga and ordered me to cross over to Tanzania yet I even do not know how Tanzania looks like. I was rescued by members of our community there and travelled back to Mayungu the following day only to find my children had gone without food for three days,” she adds.
For a Pemba member to own property or his or her child to go to school in Kenya they have to negotiate with a person with an identity card who will assume parenthood and to transact for properties they have to register the property in another person’s name to avoid problems. Mrs. Rahma says she bought land and was forced to register it in another man’s name who later dispossessed her of the land. “My children find it hard to learn even after I registered their birth certificate using a foster father. We are forced to abandon our names for other communities’ names,” she says.
Mr. Yusuf Jumaa schemed his way out by using illegal means to acquire his Kenyan identity card and he is not sorry about it following what he had to do to avoid persecution. He told the MP’s that some members of his community have obtained national identity cards using short cuts.
“I had to do whatever I could to fend for my family without stress since my children could not even sit for examinations for lack of birth certificates and so I had to obtain an ID then process for them the birth certificate to enable them sit exams,” he says adding that the document has enabled him to transact business freely and open a bank account.
His case is no different from Miss Samira Omar who sat her Kenya Certificate of Primary Education (KCPE) and the Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE) using documents of a foster parent that was hired for the job. She produced a birth certificate with the names of ‘Good Samaritans’ as her parents identity and added that despite being born and raised in Kenya, she is regarded a non citizen. “I have been to Tanzania before but that is not my home because I only visited a hotel for holiday, my home is in Watamu,” she says.
Mr. Hassan Hamadi is a sad man and narrated to the MP’s how he has been arrested on several occasions and taken to court for working in Kenya without a work permit. “I have been beaten up by the police on several occasions with my mistake being not having an ID. Seven months ago I was hospitalized at a Malindi hospital and people had lost saying I was dying due to the level of injuries I sustained in the hands of the Kenya police,” he says.
Mrs. Diana Gichengo from the Kenya Human Rights Commission (KHRC) said that the organization intervened on behalf of the ‘stateless’ communities after carrying out an extensive research that indicated they are indeed Kenyans. “The Pemba community has in the past petitioned at the Kilifi and Kwale county assemblies to be recognized but all that has failed and that is why we came in,” she says.
The community claim they moved into the East African regions during the reign of Sultan Abdullah Bin Khalifa of Zanzibar after taking advantage of the ‘10 mile strip’, which is from Vanga near the Kenya-Tanzania border to Kipini in Lamu.
She added that from their research they found that a Pemba community member was the founder chief of Mombasa several decades ago and they wondered why the community was being persecuted and added that the intention of KHRC was to have the Pemba community and four others incorporated and accepted into the society as Kenyan citizens just like what happened to the members of the Makonde community.