A 25-year-old woman, Faith Nyokabi, was on Tuesday arrested in Thika town, Kenya for allegedly refusing to breastfeed her baby unless she was paid by her husband.
Nyokabi reportedly abandoned her four-month-old baby at her matrimonial home in Kiganjo Estate over a week ago and refused to return without receiving Ksh.100,000 ($995) in cash from her husband, Charles Kiiri, reports Citizen TV Kenya.
According to the 36-year-old Kirii, a casual labourer, he was informed on August 1, 2018, that his wife had taken off and left their infant in the house.
He reportedly rushed home and found the baby under the care of neighbours. Kiiri pleaded with Nyokabi to return home to breastfeed her baby but she told him that her mother had taken her to a local hospital where she had been injected with a drug that supposedly dried out her milk supply.
Nyokabi told her husband, she wouldn’t come back home unless he gave her the money.
She will be charged with child neglect and denying a child protection and care contrary to the Children’s Act of Kenya.