Defilement cases in North Rift on the rise

More than eight children are defiled every day in the North Rift region, with 50 per cent of the cases being perpetrated by close family relatives or guardians.

A case in point is a father from Kapseret sub-county, Uasin Gishu County who was sentenced to 20 years in jail for sodomising his six-year-old son, and nine-year old daughter, and infecting them with them with HIV and Aids.

Another case involved a man from Iten, Elgeyo Marakwet County who was jailed for 40 years for defiling his 10-year-old step daughter.

The girl had previously been defiled at age six by her biological father.

Jackline Kibaru, a lawyer at Legal Aid Centre (Lace) at Academic Model Providing Access to Healthcare (Ampath) centre in Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital, says defilement cases are on the rise calling for urgent intervention from the Judiciary, police and human rights organisations.

"Defilement of children is rising and the trend is extending to schools where teachers and senior class students are perpetrators. I have a case of a Standard Eight pupil charged with sodomising and defiling younger schoolmates, and this complicates the situation," Ms Kibaru adds.

She says it is complicated to handle cases of older minors penetrating younger counterparts, citing the aspect of consent in situations where a 17-year old minor defiles a 15-year old girlfriend.

She adds that perceived victims of over 10 years sometimes lie to the courts to protect their 'lovers' while in some cases, girls have threatened to commit suicide when action is taken on their 'boyfriends'.

"There is a case where the High Court had to consider ending a case against an 18-year-old boy accused of defiling a 16-year-old girl after the latter threatened to commit suicide. We had her counselled for three weeks but sadly they eloped," Kibaru said.