Definitely the wrong rape victim

The vice-chancellor had promised us that she would come out guns blazing for the next girl.

Even as we heightened preventive security around the campus we were gearing up for the fight. We would force the country to have this conversation - date rape at Kenyan universities.

The moderately successful campaign against sex-for-grades in Kenyan university campuses had actually been a test drive for this. We now knew for sure what needed to be done.

We had media support in place, we had honed our social media skills, and we had the language and all the right NGOs waiting for the call.

We had invested in 'raising awareness' so the girl would come to us if and when it happened. Then the girl came.

It had to be Charlene, the girl who had slept with the entire rugby team then written a comparative review of their performance on her blog.

The same blog where she confessed to never having had a one-night-stand because she had to have sex with a man at least twice, once when drunk and once when sober so she could get an accurate feel for his “range.”

The story was also wrong but she stuck to it. After a party in the hostel’s communal area, she had gone up with James to his room and passed out.

She awoke the next morning to discover he had had unprotected sex with her. By her own admission she had intended to have sex with him but definitely not unprotected.

James explanation was that it did not matter because they had been making out when she “KO-ed”.

That was before someone wizened him up and he changed his version to expressly state she had not only been awake but had consented all the way. Maybe the alcohol had messed with her memory.

Then there was her attitude. She was angry whereas we needed her to be broken. We had been prepared for a traumatised girl whose life would never be the same.

This was definitely not her. She was broken in all the wrong places. Worse still she expected us to fight for her.