A school in Garissa county has been ordered to pay Sh650,000 to a scholar whom they forcefully transferred after understanding his HIV fame.
HIV and AIDS Tribunal chair Carolyne Mboku ruled that indeed the number one college head discriminated against MS through forcing his discern JM to transfer from the college due to his situation.
The Claimant had moved to the Tribunal in 2023 suing for her son after the school allegedly had provided Sh10,000 to facilitate the exit of the 12-12 months-old from the school.
She hunted for damages for the impairment of dignity, and emotional, bodily and psychological suffering.
The Tribunal further discovered that for the faculty to demand the minor to be transferred out of the faculty upon learning of the minor’s HIV status become certainly to discriminate towards the minor in reality contravening Section 32 of the Act.
“Stigma and discrimination is an affront to human rights and puts the lives of people living with HIV and key populations in risk.”
The court docket further stated that it is pretty unfortunate that a minor could be discriminated in opposition to and stigmatized to the point of now not going to highschool by way of the school administrators which in truth is going towards the first-class hobby of the minor.
“Having regard to the claim earlier than us and submissions of the Claimant, we as a consequence award the sum of Sh400,000/= for the discriminating upon the Claimant primarily based on his HIV popularity and Sh250,000/= for the stigmatization suffered. We additionally award prices of this fit to the Claimant”, the Tribunal dominated.
It become the claimant’s testimony that she enrolled her son on standard one at the Respondent’s college sometime within the year 2019.
She avered that the school became a boarding faculty and consequently she devised methods to get the minor to take his ARVs without disclosing his fame to the faculty and different learners.
She further, tasked the minor’s elder brother, who was additionally within the identical faculty, to make certain that his more youthful brother took his remedy without fail and on the appointed time.
It become her case that as time went by way of, it changed into turning into hard to administer the drugs to the minor which necessitated the Claimant to interact with body of workers at a Clinic, their precise clinic, to accompany her to the faculty and tell the college management of the venture.
She added that upon disclosing the minor’s repute to the college management, the college began discriminating against the minor to the point that the faculty head demanded that the Claimant switch the minor far from the faculty.
To achieve this, the Claimant testified, that the 1st Respondent promised the Claimant that they might facilitate the switch through presenting the Claimant the sum of Sh10,000 to withdraw the minor from the school.
It changed into her proof that the faculty head simplest sent her the sum of Sh600 on 21st January 2020 to facilitate the switch of the minor from their school.
She therefore alleges that the movements of the Respondents had been discriminatory, stigmatizing and in breach of her statutory rights consequently ensuing in ache and struggling bodily, emotionally and psychologically.
In move-examination with the aid of the Tribunal, the Claimant confirmed that the minor is 12 years antique and became in magnificence 2 at some point of the prevalence of the incident.
She similarly showed that the college manager, the 1st Respondent knowledgeable her on call that the minor be transferred from faculty. She therefore closed the Claimant’s case.
The Tribunal cited that regardless of carrier, the Respondents did no longer input appearance nor did they protect the declare as introduced against them.