On one sunny morning two years ago, Government Chemists staff were confronted with a scene that still evokes laughter and disappointment to this moment. At the entrance, a visibly angry man paraded 10 children all in school uniforms. The confused and frightened children looked at the men and women in white coats going about their business at the Chemist with a lot of fear, not knowing what the man they have known for years as their father was up to.

On one sunny morning two years ago, Government Chemists staff were confronted with a scene that still evokes laughter and disappointment to this moment.

At the entrance, a visibly angry man paraded 10 children all in school uniforms.

The confused and frightened children looked at the men and women in white coats going about their business at the Chemist with a lot of fear, not knowing what the man they have known for years as their father was up to.

But the man was on a mission.  “I want to know if these children are mine,” John Mungai, a senior analyst at the Government Chemists, recalls the man’s first words when asked what he wanted.

It was this response the Chemist staff realized the man wanted to do a paternity to establish if he was the biological father of the children he was taking care of.

For him, a paternity test was going to settle the suspicions he had harboured about his wife’s sexual escapades for a very long time.

He explained that he decided to do such a test for his children some whom were as old as 13-years because he believed his wife was engaging in extramarital affairs.

The Government Chemists agreed to do the paternity test, and he duly paid Ksh 60,000, cost for his blood sample, the wife and the 10 children. Each case is Ksh 5,000.

“On the day he was supposed to pick the results, he arrived very early in the morning, very expectant of what he was going to find out,” recalls Mungai.

But when they were handed to him, he read them with a contorted face. He then kept quiet for sometime, and then told Mungai he was satisfied with them.

“I now know I am the father and will continue paying their school fees and meeting other expenses,” he told Mungai, and then disappeared never to be seen again.

But as he walked away an elated man, the damage he done to his children, wife and himself was going to have far reaching repercussions. 

Psychiatrists argue that paternity testing is a very emotional issue, and by taking a step to determine the paternity of his children, he had punctured the trust and love his family had for him.

“It is devastating to the children who will always ask why their father subjected them to that,” says Dr Nelly Kitazi, a psychiatrist.

His wife on the other may engage in extra marital affairs to prove to him he is not smart at all.

“Although some of these tests are necessary, people need to think through them before doing one. Is best when the children are young and do not know what is going on.”

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