Kilifi County: Where life is an everyday danger for girls

Sauti Ya Wanawake Ganze chapter chairperson Judith Uchi speaks to a reporter about sexual violence in Kilifi County. PHOTO | KAZUNGU SAMUEL | NATION MEDIA GROUP

What you need to know:

  • Sauti Ya Wanawake Ganze chapter chair Judith Uchi said Kilifi is still grappling with cases of sexual and gender-based violence.
  • Negligence is still a problem in the county as it contributes 70 per cent of all the child abuse cases.

She kept rubbing her palms. Her lips shook intermittently as she stared at the cameras.

The 13-year-old girl from Ganze Sub-County, Kilifi County, has a harrowing story.

Hers is a story of rape and a murder that took place in early February.

“It was on Friday evening. My sister and I had gone to a nearby water pan to fetch water after school. I left for home early while she was still fetching water,” she started.

A few metres from the water pan, a man on a motorcycle passed her but stopped immediately.

“He was dressed in a suit and I did not suspect anything fishy about him. He asked for some drinking water, but before I could give him the water, he grabbed my hand and dragged me to a nearby thicket,” she added.

ATTEMPTED RAPE
Then sensing danger, the girl screamed that a man wanted to kill her. Her cries caught the attention of a woman who was tilling her farm.

“The woman appeared and the man ran away. I rushed to the water pan and asked my sister to rush home since the man could harm us. We dashed home and reported the matter to our parents,” she said.

The following morning, the same man tried to rape another 12-year-old girl.

But this time, he was not lucky because villagers caught up with him and lynched him.

“I had taken my sister to a nearby school and when I was returning home, a man appeared.

“He asked me why I was alone in the bush in the morning. I told him that I was returning home after dropping my sister at a village primary school,” the victim said.

LYNCHED

The man, she said, roughed her up and dragged her to a thicket. The girl sustained injuries on her thighs. The man attempted to rape her.

“I screamed and a man who was passing nearby responded. He rushed to the scene and found the man holding me and pinning me to the ground.

“He tried to run but he was overpowered by other residents. He was lynched,” the young girl, also a primary school pupil in one of the schools in Ganze, said.

The girl, this time bleeding from the injuries, was taken to hospital and treated.

“It was a terrible act. I don’t know why he was doing it to me. I was told later that he had attempted the same on another girl the previous day,” the girl said.

PREGNANT
But as the two young girls narrated their ordeal in the hands of the alleged rapist, a 16-year-old girl is yet to come to terms with a pregnancy after she was waylaid by a man in Kilifi and detained for two weeks in a house.

“We were just friends here in Ganze and one day, he asked me to visit his house in Kilifi. I went because I knew we were just friends,” the girl said.

When she arrived at the house, the man in his early 20s locked her in, warning her that she would not leave the house again.

“He sexually abused me for two weeks before I sneaked out of the house and ran away. By that time, my mother had mounted a search for me all over,” she said.

The girl later returned home and was taken to Ganze police station to record a statement. Police mounted a search for the man who has since gone into hiding.
EDUCATION
But the two-week ordeal ended on a sour note because the girl got pregnant and is now about to give birth.

The distraught mother of the girl said her daughter’s pregnancy affected her ambitions although the determined girl wants to return to school after giving birth.

“She was admitted to secondary school after scoring more than 300 marks. She is a bright girl and was the only hope in the family but now she has to contend with being a mother at an early age.

“I am trying hard to encourage her as her only parent after her father died. It’s a tough task but I always tell her that she should not give up,” the mother said.

“I am running a small vegetable kiosk in the trading centre and, from the proceeds, I have already purchased school uniforms.

“I am working at a kiosk to raise my school fees and by the time I deliver, I want to have funds to pay for my school fees.

"Whatever happened, I am forging ahead. I know it’s an enormous task but will soldier on,” the girl told the Sunday Nation.

GENDER-BASED VIOLENCE
Sauti Ya Wanawake Ganze chapter chair Judith Uchi said the region is still grappling with cases of sexual and gender-based violence, despite numerous efforts by both the government and local non-governmental organisations.

“We have recorded 449 cases of gender and sexual violence in Ganze since 2013. Out of these cases, only 74 were heard and decided by courts in Kilifi.

"We have 174 cases that are still pending in court because there are no witnesses to allow them to progress. This is a big challenge to us,” she said.

Ms Uchi said her organisation had, in conjunction with others, conducted sensitisation programmes to the communities but the uptake is slow.

“Some parents openly lament that if it is an attempted rape but their daughter is fine, they will not take action. They fail to appear in court even if we pursue these cases. It is a big problem,” she said.

CHILD ABUSE
A Ganze human rights activists Frank Thoya said some of the perpetrators are people known to the victims.

“We visited a school in Kaloleni constituency early this year where 18 girls from the school were impregnated. When we followed up, we discovered that some of the suspects were indeed well- known people to the families of the girls. “It is terrible and disturbing,” he said.

County Director of Children’s Affairs George Migosi said between June 2016 and June 2017, some 7,678 cases of child abuse were recorded in his office.

Statistics at the County Children’s office show negligence is still a problem in the county as it contributes 70 per cent of all the child abuse cases.

“We had a total of 4,091 cases of child negligence, with Malindi sub-county leading.

"It had a total of 2,134 cases that were reported compared to Rabai Sub-County, which had the least reported cases at 134,” the director said in an earlier interview.

He raised the alarm over the increase in sexual abuse.

“Over the last one year we recorded 89 cases of child marriages, 321 cases of defilement and 182 cases of child pregnancy.

"Ganze topped with 48 cases of child pregnancy and was followed by Malindi, which had 44 cases. Malindi topped the list of the sub-counties with the highest number of defilement cases where 10 children, on average, are defiled every month.