A Christian couple who founded a ministry for vulnerable children have launched a petition demanding the discharge of 16 children who’re being held by the Kano State authorities in Nigeria.
The ordeal began in December 2019 when state representatives seized 27 children from Du Merci Centres after its co-founder and the kids’s adopted father, Professor Solomon Musa Tarfa, was arrested.
Tarfa, who since 1996 has devoted his life to helping vulnerable children, was accused of kidnapping and abduction in addition to forging documentation giving him the precise to run an orphanage.
Tarfa was cleared of the kidnapping and abduction charges but hung out in prison after being found guilty of forgery, although this was later thrown out on appeal.
During his time in prison, the kids were held in state facilities where they got Muslim names and required to practise Islam. In one case a boy was refused medical treatment after burning himself, leaving him permanently disfigured, in keeping with International Christian Concern.
Eleven older children were eventually released, but 16 predominantly younger ones are still in government custody.
Quite a few legal appeals led to an agreement at hand the kids over in March. However on the day of the supposed handover the Commissioner for Women Affairs stated that it could now not go ahead, pending an inter-ministry review of the court’s decision. The review continues to be pending.
Now Tarfa and his wife Mercy have launched a petition demanding the immediate release of the kids and an investigation into human rights violations that will have been committed against them while in government care.
The case has been rigorously followed by Christian Solidarity Worldwide, whose founder and President, Mervyn Thomas said, “CSW stands with the Tarfas in calling for the immediate return of the 16 remaining children who’ve now been unjustly separated from them for over five and a half years.
“We insist that the Kano State government, which is currently disregarding the court’s instructions to return these children to the Tarfas’ care, must make reparations to this family for the years of trauma and injustice to which they’ve been subjected through needlessly prolonged legal proceedings and the appalling mistreatment of those children whilst in the federal government’s so-called ‘care’.”
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