Cases of rape and sodomy on the increase

The sun has just set on Githunguri, and one by one, patrons leave a pub. A few stragglers swig the last of their drinks as they, too, seem in a hurry to get home.

This is a dangerous time for the residents of this town. No one feels secure on the narrow paths that lead to their houses.

They walk huddled in groups. After a few minutes, hushed tones break the monotony of their footsteps and in the still of the oncoming darkness, they start to talk about what has happened to some of their friends.

“He was sodomised by more than five men. We tried to persuade him not to walk alone. He didn’t listen. He is not talking to anyone, and they say he has quit alcohol,” said a former drinking buddy of Joseph Kimari.

His ordeal

At this point, Mr Kimari lets out a loud sigh. As if on cue, no one else in the group talks. And after several minutes of silence, he opens up and narrates his ordeal.

One day after a session at his favourite pub, he decided he had had enough and headed home. But minutes later, his was accosted by a gang of young men.

“When I got to the junction of Kiambu and Ruiru roads, the men appeared from nowhere,” he said.

Months later, the words he heard next still ring in his ears.

“One of them told the others to drag me to the nearby napier grass plantation and rape me,” he said.

Luckily for him, a vehicle passed close by with its headlights on, forcing the gang members to scatter and leaving the Githunguri District resident sprawled on the grass, thanking his guardian angels.

He was lucky not to become a statistic in the mounting crime wave.

Three weeks ago, a woman was raped, murdered and left to rot in a corner of the large NSSF building on the edge of Nairobi’s central business district.

Every dawn, five children wake up defiled, three people end up dead and two women are raped, according to police statistics. Every 48 hours, a father, a husband or a son is sodomised. These are the grim statistics that define the recent increase in crimes termed “offences against morality” in the country.

The frustrations of a jobless younger generation, the dereliction of duty by their elders and an unhealthy mental state of the nation are at the root of the increase in these crimes, experts say.

And these figures could be much higher than those recorded by police since many victims shy away from reporting the violation of their bodies or those of their family members.

“The bad thing is that a majority of these crimes go unreported simply because there is a lot of shame associated with them,” said psychologist George Ouko of the Kenya Association of Professional Counsellors (KAPC).

Data posted on the Kenya Police website gathered between 2006 and 2008 show that an average of 2,012 rapes, 1,759 defilements, and 177 cases of sodomy are reported annually across the country.

Mr Ouko believes he may know why the abuse is going on.

“The criminal is mainly driven by frustration on--economic, social or moral--and in time looks for an outlet for the pent-up rage within him,” he said “If he has no money, he will take it from you. If he believes he is ignored by the fairer sex, he will rape and show no signs of remorse.”

He said most mental health problems in Kenya go undetected ands thus untreated, at times with devastating effects directed mainly at women and children.

In spite of their own alarming statistics, the police maintain there is no reason for Kenyans to be alarmed since, according to the police spokesperson, such crimes are not on the increase.

“Currently Kenyans are more aware of the importance of reporting crimes than they were five years ago,” Eric Kiraithe said.

But psychologists and victims are under no illusion that the levels of these crimes have risen.

“That very night, a close friend was sodomised a few metres from where I lay earlier in the night,” Mr Kimari said.

Githunguri District Commissioner Henry Wafula said victims rarely report cases of sexual assault to the authorities.

Last month a 16-year-old girl in Kisumu was stabbed by her male neighbour after a rape attempt went awry. The girl’s guardian said the victim, a primary school pupil, had gone to bathe in a near-by bathroom before being attacked.

She was found on the bathroom floor bleeding from knife wounds to her chest, stomach and neck.

Despite the fact that most of the perpetrators are repeat offenders, little can be done to apprehend them because of a several hampered police investigations unit.

“Nothing speaks louder that the presence of DNA evidence in a case. In most cases, it proves guilt or innocence beyond reasonable doubt,” said Nairobi lawyer Cliff Ombeta.

The police department is very dependent on the competence of its investigation officers and the reliability of a fingerprint database.

“Almost always the prints lifted off crime scenes are inconclusive, or the discovered bodies are in such a bad state that no prints can be lifted from them. This ends up as the victim’s word against that of the suspect in court,” Mr Ombeta said.

Mr Kiraithe said ongoing police reforms seek to address such shortcomings in the force.

But experts say this outburst of violent behaviour may be a larger reflection of the country’s mental health.

“People are walking around with all kinds of disorders,” said psychiatrist Frank Njenga, who added that this is the only way one can rationalise the bizarre nature of certain acts by individuals.

“Most of our clients have been molested or raped by their parents, friends or teachers. These are people they trust and we cannot explain to them why certain things have happened to them,” Rosemary Muganda of the Adolescent Crisis Centre told the Sunday Nation.

She said only a quarter of these cases are reported.

With an ill-trained and poorly equipped police force, an increasingly modern and tech-savvy crime world is finding it easy to choose victims. But the UN recommends one police officer for every 400 citizens; the Kenyan force is overwhelmed with one officer for every 1,000 citizens.