Girls are fast becoming an extremely endangered species. Day in day out, the news making headlines is that of sexual defilement and rape cases of girls as young as 6 years old.
Girls are being raped, murdered and dumped in pit latrines and bushes by men who seemingly don’t have a care in the world. It is evolving into a crisis that needs to be addressed before it escalates to a situation where we must escort girls to school and other social places and closely monitor them while there.
Worse still, we could be getting to a situation where women will be compelled to walk in groups to avoid being waylaid by sexually starved men. We do know of the drastic role that uncensored media programmes and advertisements may have played in encouraging the high rate of immorality in society.
However, there is more than meets the eyes; there’s more to this immoral behaviour, especially the tolerance granted to sexual suspects.
Many of them are able to walk away free after a brief stay in the police cells or prison.
The suspects don’t seem to comprehend the repercussions of committing sexual offences despite there being sexual offences legislation since 2006.
Under the Act, various sexual offences have been clearly enumerated together with their penalties, which are generally harsh in order to serve both a rehabilitation and retribution purpose. For instance, a person who commits the offence of rape is liable upon conviction to life imprisonment or other terms that the court deems appropriate.
Additionally, punishment for a person who commits the offence of grievous sexual assault is similar to that of rape. On the other hand, an attempt to commit rape or defilement makes a person liable to an imprisonment of not less than five years or life imprisonment. All acts of indecent touching or assault of persons under the age of eighteen years are also classified as sexual offences liable to specific penalties.
Sexual harassment at work also falls under the classification of sexual crimes although this fact has for the longest time been overlooked with only few been convicted. These are just a part of the numerous well elaborated offences that have been enshrined in the Sexual Offences Act No. 3 of 2006, leaving no stones of sexual crimes uncovered.
The punishment for sexual convicts has been appraised and backed by the social contractarian theory which proposed that those who breach the terms of the social contract according to John Locke and Jeau Rousseau should be penalsed in accordance with the magnitude of the offence committed as is the case with common commercial contracts.
It is therefore high time that sexual offenders are brought to book speedily in accordance with article 50(2) (e) of the Constitution Of Kenya 2010, in order that justice for the victims be availed and accessed as per the bill of rights which is incorporated in the constitution of Kenya.
On the other hand, as a nation we need to come up with ways and mechanisms through which sexual offenders can be rehabilitated. We are tired of our innocent girls being exposed to the most abominable, despicable and heinous acts while society watches in shock and despair without much action being taken.
It does not have to come to a point where we are launching legal protection programmes against defilement of children in kindergarten instead of teaching them basic arithmetic.
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