Doctors set to expose child abuse horrors

Doctors have promised to open up next week on the horrors of child abuse in the country. The physicians will also demonstrate the latest advances in pediatric health care.

They will present scientific evidence proving that neighbours and fathers are notorious for abusing girls aged as little as two years. Data collected at Kenyatta National Hospital (KNH) by a team of paediatricians show that in 87 per cent of all sex abuse cases presented at the hospital, the culprits are known to the victim.

The information will be presented by Dr Peris Njiri to the International Congress of Tropical Paediatrics which opens on Sunday at the Kenyatta International Conference Centre.

In a preview, Dr Njiri of the Kenya Paediatricts Association, who are the organisers of the event, says neighbours were the main abusers of small girls followed by fathers and then uncles.

"Neighbours were perpetrators in 31 per cent of cases, fathers in 24 per cent and uncles in 16 per cent," says a summary of the study.

Almost all sexually-abused children were girls and in about half of the cases, the act took place in the child's house while five per cent happened at school. "In all cases of abuse where the perpetrators were not known, they were reported to the police compared to only 57 per cent of cases in which the perpetrator was known."

Dr Njiri and her colleagues from the University of Nairobi and KNH say lack of supervision for children during play and poverty are the main contributors of child abuse. Another team will show glaring mistakes in the treatment of infants in hospitals.