Sexual abuse: Pupils complaints fall on deaf ears

By John Oywa

The deaf girl is still too traumatised to recount her ordeal that fateful afternoon.

She was reportedly lured into a computer room and defiled by one of her teachers.

Terrified and ashamed, she told no one about the incident until a month later when she realised she was pregnant.

Teachers sent her home despite protests from her classmates. She gave birth nine months later and was re-admitted to the same school to complete vocational training.

Now, living with her child and parents in a rural village in Kisii, the girl, who we cannot name for privacy reasons, is a case study of the increasing cases of sex abuse in special schools across the country.

Teachers defiling

The Kenya National Association of the Deaf (KNAD) officials say they have received numerous complaints from many schools about teachers defiling and even impregnating their pupils suffering from disabilities.

The association National Chairman, Nickson Kakiri says they have documented many cases of sexual abuse in schools for the deaf in the recent past and were investigating more.

Besides sexual abuse, the more than 40 schools for the deaf in the country were facing myriad problems ranging from lack of trained Kenya Sign Language (KSL) teachers to skewed representation in the Boards of Governors and lack of facilities needed for children with disabilities, a situation that has disadvantaged the deaf students.

Communication breakdown

Many cases of sexual abuse against deaf children, he says go unreported because of breakdown of communication between the victims, education officials, law enforcers and parents. Their appeals for help, he says, have literally fallen on deaf ears.

KNAD singles out the Kuja Primary School for the Deaf in Rongo District as one of the affected institutions.

Besides the above mentioned girl, the South Nyanza Association for the Deaf (SNAD), an affiliate of KNAD, claim they recently received five cases of sexual harassment at Kuja. "We have received complaints that some of the teachers are sexually harassing their pupils either by touching their breasts, private parts or defiling," says Mr Daniel Ogembo, the SNAD Secretary.

He says the pupils wrote letters incriminating teachers.

In some of the letters addressed to the Teachers Service Commission (TSC) last October and copied to the Ministry of Education and SNAD, the pupils from Kuja even named teachers who they allege have been molesting them.

The pupils claim the said teachers call them to their houses, staffrooms and other secluded places where they touch their breasts and force them into sex then warn them against reporting to the school authorities.

Ogembo says SNAD raised the Kuja case with the area DEO Albert Langat and the TSC.

He showed Education a letter from the school’s BOG summoning him to "shed light" on the allegations after he wrote to the commission. On November 5, last year, the Board, in a letter signed by the Headteacher, Julius Muga, banned Ogembo from setting foot in the school over the letters accusing teachers of over the sex scandal. The letter read in part: "Following the meeting of executive School BOG held on 28/10/2009, it was resolved that you be banned from entry into the school compound unless invited," It added: "This is due to a number of unanimous letters written and sent to different offices including your letter accusing the head teacher and two other teachers..."

But Ogembo insists he has evidence the school’s BOG was covering up incidences of sexual abuse against the deaf girls at Kuja. "The truth is that majority of the board members do not understand problems facing the deaf people. They did not even understand the sign language so they ended up siding with the accused who are not deaf," he says.

He adds: "The whole thing was complicated because the school inspectors who visited the school to interview the affected girls did not understand the Kenyan Sign Language and relied on the same teachers as interpreters. It was like asking an accused person to investigate himself."

Witch-hunt

But Langat and Muga have denied allegations that sexual abuse is rampant at Kuja Primary School for the Deaf. They accuse Ogembo, who is deaf, of witch-hunt and challenged him to provide evidence. Ogembo later produced a picture of one of the deaf students whom he claimed was defiled and impregnated by her teacher.

Langat says the Ministry of Education conducted "exhaustive" investigations into the matter and did not find evidence against the accused teachers. "I sent a team that spent a whole week investigating the alleged sex scandal in the school but concluded they were mere allegations. No student came out to say they had been sexually abused. There is nothing!" says Langat.

He added: " The officials of the association have complained to me but they are raise very old cases, some dating back to 2004 and 2006 when none of us was here. I think this is just witch-hunt. The officials want some particular teachers removed from the school. But Let someone else come and investigate."

Muga concedes there has been problems at the school over the alleged sex scandal but defended the three teachers being accused of preying on their female pupils. "This matter has been investigated. I have been summoned to the Ministry of Education headquarters for questioning but there has been no evidence that the teachers are sex pests. What I know is there is serious collaboration by some people to have some of the teachers either sacked or transferred," he says.

Independent investigators

As the Kuja controversy raged last week, the KNAD officials say abuse is widespread and wanted the ministry to send independent inspectors who can communicate with deaf pupils to visit all schools for the deaf to investigate the problems facing such institutions. "The Kuja issue is just a case study. There are serious human rights abuses against pupils with disabilities in this country. Besides sexual harassment, they lack infrastructure to enable them learn like other pupils," says Kakiri.

The association officials say they are concerned at the low representation of deaf people in the boards of schools for the deaf, saying this has worsened an already bad situation for the deaf. "Why is it that the composition of school BOG in deaf institutions are only hearing people yet these institutions serves to great extent the interest of deaf people yet hundreds of old students from these institutions are professional out there?" asks Ogembo.

He says a majority of the schools for the deaf were manned by non-deaf teachers, some of who had very limited understanding of sign language.