Link to article: https://apnews.com/article/kenya-british-army-children-934890cc191dc30de44d52e8fc8b9f1b
Kenya and Great Britain have a defense cooperation equaling $44 million. This cooperation allows for up to 10,000 British forces to train in Kenya for 8 weeks each year. Kenya has seen a large amount of biracial children in their country, and this is due to the British soldiers’ stay in their country. These soldiers stay in Kenya for a stint, impregnate the women, and then leave, leaving no financial help for the women. A Kenyan lawyer is taking a number of such biracial children to court to find their fathers and seek their support. There have also been persistent allegations of rape to local women. The biracial children have felt excluded from their society because of their skin color, and left out of education and employment. One biracial person was driven to alcoholism because of the exclusion they faced, and a mother to another biracial child was asked to pay more for school because of her child’s skin color. The lawyer is also raising money to conduct DNA tests to find the fathers. Britain’s defense ministry deemed the rape allegations as “not genuine.”
This article describes a conflict between Kenyan citizens and British forces. As this story is gaining international attention, both countries are going to have to respond to the situation sooner or later. This could lead to a change in their cooperation and military agreement, which has been long-standing. Kenya and Britain’s shared history dates back very far, as Kenya used to be a British colony. Even though Kenya is now free of British rule and they seem to have developed a good relationship with each other, this issue demonstrates there are still issues between the two. Britain has two options – they can either continue to diminish the allegations and possibly damage their relationship with Kenya. Or, they can hold their soldiers accountable (something the US would probably not do i.e. something very powerful countries don’t like to do).
Looking through the lens of post-colonial studies, we can see the historical surroundings of this issue. According to the world, Great Britain, a western country, is thought to be superior to a “global South country” like Kenya. The post-colonial view criticizes this status quo view. European imperialism led to this issue of Britains (specifically the soldiers in this case) believing they are above the Kenyan women, and therefore have the right to take advantage of them. This also leads to a greater issue of racism in the world, as these biracial children now have no society that truly accepts them.