The cries of a child

Lessons from society's treatment of children

Mirabel is a queer refugee who runs a safe house in Nairobi, Kenya.

The house provides shelter to seven adults and eight children. My focus here is on the children. They are fed and cared for; they got the shoes, sweaters, and notebooks they need for school.

Recently, someone abandoned a 4-year-old boy outside Mirabel's safe house before dawn. She found him shivering on the ground. He cried, but did not speak. All he was wearing was a shirt, shorts and no shoes. She held him, gave him medicine and wrapped him in her T-shirt. She contacted the local village chief and the police and consulted a nonprofit group that helps children. She was told to take the child to a county facility a good distance away.

She sang for the child to comfort him. He was fascinated and touched her face. When they reached the place where she was to turn him over to the county officials, the boy cried as she was leaving. In the space of a day, a bond of trust had formed. It was heartbreaking, but Mirabel is at capacity with the children she already has.

The next day the officials called and said the boy is not Kenyan but Congolese. He is a refugee whose mother died in an accident. Because they put refugees in a different category, they told Mirabel to come and take him to some other place.

She refused. She said she had done her best to get him the help he needed, and had no further responsibility. Fortunately, she has a paralegal certificate which helps her deal with government officials. The police she spoke with told her she had done the right thing.

The world can be a cold and cruel place, especially for children. There are thousands of homeless children in Nairobi.

In 1988, the late gay historian and Yale professor John Boswell wrote a book called "The Kindness of Strangers: The Abandonment of Children in Western Europe from Late Antiquity to the Renaissance." The practice was common. Parents used churches and foundling hospitals.

With such a history, it should be no surprise that recent weeks have seen Customs and Immigration Enforcement officers in America arresting parents while leaving their children on their own, as well as cases in which a parent and child were seized and sent to one of Trump's concentration camps.

The boy in Nairobi could have been treated worse by whoever left him outside the safe house. In America, cases arise of newborn babies being found in trash bins by passersby who hear their cries.

It requires receptivity to gain understanding of others' suffering. I am much better off than a refugee in Kenya. I have a pension, health insurance and a personal support network. I am not estranged from my family and I have loving friends. I have legal rights for which I and many others fought. Those rights are now under attack by Trump and his allies, not because Trump personally cares, but because stoking the culture wars helps him consolidate power.

Some gay and trans refugees who fled to Nairobi from neighboring countries have had to hide from family members who went there to hunt them down. Dissertations could be written on why murders of family members for being different came to be called "honor killings." There is no honor in ignorance, cruelty and hate.

Recent events show that if we do not learn to respect our differences, society will splinter into conflict and needless suffering. Those who will suffer the most are children.

None of us can solve all the problems in the world, but we can do our part. Mirabel did so when she comforted the abandoned boy and looked for where to take him for the care he needed. She still doesn't know his name, but she remembers her heartbreak when he cried at their parting.

When she returned home, the children at her house were waiting and greeted her warmly.

Let us hold our children close while giving a thought to those who are lost, alone and afraid. We should not accept a caste system in which our own children are safe and well cared for, while others fend for themselves in the streets.

Suffering that we ignore can metastasize into a threat to things we take for granted. The more of us who step in to fill the gaps instead of leaving the task to others, the more we will build community rather than chaos.

Richard Rosendall is a writer and activist who can be reached at [email protected].

Copyright © 2026 by Richard J. Rosendall. All rights reserved.