What does it take to travel or relocate outside the country with your child when you are a single parent?
Kenyan law provides that the parents of a child have joint and equal parental responsibility whether they are married to each other or not. This position reflects an international standard set out in the U.N Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC).
As a result of this, before issuing a visa to a child to travel or emigrate with one parent, the embassies of many countries insist that you provide the consent of the other parent or an order from the court confirming that you have sole custody of the child.
If the consent of the other parent of your child cannot be obtained either because the person never acknowledged the child as theirs, or they cannot be found, we can help you approach the Children’s Court and request for an order of sole custody to enable you travel with the child.
A variant of a sole custody order is joint custody order with authority to travel. We pursue this where one parent has secured opportunities abroad and the other parent is reluctant to let the child or children go abroad with the other parent. If the parent who needs to travel abroad has been the primary care giver of the child and if it would not be in the best interest of the child to interrupt that care, a court may order that parents still have joint custody but that one parent is allowed to travel or relocate outside Kenya with the child in the child’s best interests. In these cases, the court will require that the relocating parent puts structures in place to ensure that the child retains a relationship and frequent interaction with the parent remaining in Kenya.