Dear Colleagues,
I have had to suggest this topic for conference discussion,due to rising child death in
unstable families. As i will outline briefly, the most endangered child that stands to
loose life, is not one who is in streets as parking boy, or one who is in garbage damp site,
but is the one in unstable family. I will give few instances of few cases

'Nanny stabs 2 children to death' - New York, Jacqui Goddard - Miami - 27 Oct 2012.
Reason fro stabbing given as sense of identity syndrome.

'Man hacks to death his 3 children and seriously injuring his wife before hanging himself,
left note he was HIV+.' DAILY NATION, February 12 2013.

'Man hacks 4 children to death following domestic quarrel with his wife in Nyambera Village
Kisii County, then damped the bodies in farm, the children were aged 8,6,5,3 respectively'
Standard Digital - 9th October, 2013.

Reasons given for this heinous acts include 1. identity syndrome, unfulfilled marital
obligations and empty nest syndromes i.e. sense of loss - depression and feelings of rejection.

For a child to be safe and feel guaranteed that safety what does the society at large have to do
to re-assure them of this safety? In the same tome what does the security arms of the government
have to do to arrest this situation?

In my opinion, most cases have signs that can be read from afar. Before the society wakes up one
morning to find bodies of children scattered over compound, am sure the same society may have read signs that this kind of family was becoming unstable, due to frequent quarrels and fights
in homestead. If the society has this knowledge the only thing that is not there is the reporting
procedure of how those children can be saved from impending calamity.

What should be done to put in place these mechanisms, to involve society and state security organs, to act as preventive measure and counter this mass murder of children? What is the role of professional counselors in this area, should they be engaged to offer their services; and paid by state to counsel families. May be one may ask how we will know these cases? One way we can know them is enabling professional counselors to visit chiefs camps, children department offices and police stations ,to collect data and find out where the families may be located in order to offer this help. Any other views out there? Please.

I invite my colleagues to suggest if we can also discuss this at conference.