High number of defilement cases in Kenya,survey shows

Cases of fathers having forceful sex with their daughters are common across Kenya, a new study on Gender-Based Violence (GBV) has shown.

About 17 per cent of fathers have had sex with their own girls with the research findings showing that many Kenyans (about 49 per cent) agree that GBV is widespread.

The study which comes at a time when Pastor Peter Wambua Kyonge of Jesus Light of Your Life Church in Njiru is facing charges of impregnating one of his daughters, was carried out in three regions namely: Rift Valley, Coast and Central.

In Rift Valley 47 per cent of the respondents agreed that GBV was common, Coast (58 per cent) while 42 per cent of those interviewed in Central approved of the vice.

The findings were conducted by Gender Violence Recovery Centre (GVRC) of Nairobi Women’s Hospital between March 2013 and March this year.

The sample is a reflection of the entire Kenyan population.

The researchers however did not give factors and reasons that influenced their choice of the three regions, ignoring Nairobi, Western, Eastern, Nyanza and North Eastern.

It was established that more men from Rift Valley and Central believe it is acceptable for a man to physically abuse his wife and children as compared to respondents from Coast.

Pastor Wambua was arrested on June 2 after going underground when it was discovered that he had allegedly been defiling two of his daughters since 2012 until one of them aged 15, got pregnant.

Earlier, Wambua’s wife, Jackline Wamutwa, was arrested and charged for arranging for her daughter to procure an abortion at a Kayole clinic. She was accused alongside Julius Mutinda, the medic alleged to have supplied and administered the abortion drugs.

The teenager had been taken away from their abusive home by her uncle Boniface Mutisia. Her mother managed to lure and lead her to the clinic where the abortion was carried out against her wish.

Just like with the 15-year-old Njiru girl, most victims are defiled when their mothers are away. Wamutwa, a trader, was always on business trips. Last year, a local newspaper reported how a 13-year-old was impregnated by her father in Kwale, Coast region. The woman of the house was away when her husband’s sexual lust could not hold.

The teenager managed to carry through the pregnancy until delivery. “I feel terrible and worthless,” she was quoted saying while recounting events leading to the defilement.

“It was in November 6, 2012, at night when my father told me he wanted to have sex with me. I refused,” she recalled. Her father, a suspected witchdoctor, waited until her mother had travelled to Tanzania.

“I had gone to sleep at my grandmother’s house on December 9 last year. I heard a knock and told the person that mother was not there. It was my father saying he had come for me,” she said.

Financial and social frustrations

He dragged her out and raped her near the graveyard behind their house. Initially, she was unable to report her incestuous father.

“Whenever my mother asked me why I was so forlorn, I was not able to talk because my tongue was heavy. I was later prayed for. I reported the case to my mum and uncles. My mother couldn’t say a thing about it. She did not take action because of fear.”

Out of 3,000 respondents of the GVRC study, 2015 indicated that it was unacceptable to force a woman to engage in sex while 270 were undecided about the matter — an indication of the low levels of awareness about what actually entails rape especially among people related by blood.

In January, a 16-year-old girl in Kisumu stunned a children’s officer when she revealed to him how her father aged 52, had been defiling her.

“My dad has been having sex with me for three years. He does it sometimes when he comes back for lunch and finds me alone in the house or he even comes into the bathroom when I am bathing.

Most of the time when my mum has gone to Uganda to buy things for her shop, he insists I sleep in his bed for three days,” she told the officer after she was rescued from the abusive dad.

The girl feared reporting after her father threatened to withdraw paying her primary school fees.

Helpless situations

Dr Francis Kerre, a senior sociology lecturer at the Kenyatta University, said the number of children being raped by their fathers could be higher because many victims dread reporting.

He cited a number of attributes like financial status, alcoholism, age, mental stability, father/mother relationship, father/daughter relationship, sexual starvation of husband, lack of sexual desire and the influence of the father over the family as some of the factors that lead to rape.

“It is a complex issue that needs to be analysed critically without relying on one factor,” said Kerre noting that the GVRC study needs to be properly scrutinised.

He recalled a case in which a woman confided in him how her husband had been defiling their helpless daughter.

“The woman was dependent on the husband who was a senior manager. There was nothing she could do,” said Kerre while citing money and influence as some of the factors that make fathers to misbehave.

Denial of conjugal rights, according to the sociologist, is breaking many families.

When the father is providing well but he is denied sex, the man is likely to sleep with the daughter, he said.

He added that fathers denied sex but have no money will look for it from the closest or nearest relative.