Publication Date
September 10, 2012
NAIROBI, KENYA – As a toddler, she used to sleep in the same bed with her mother and father. Her mother, who requested anonymity due to the severity of the allegations against her husband and the social stigma attached, says she would frequently leave her husband and toddler alone in the bed when she left early to sell vegetables, the family’s main source of income.
The abuse began, according to the girl, when the father penetrated her with his fingers. During the course of several years, the abuse escalated. When she was 4, her father forced her to have intercourse. She says he threatened to kill her if she told anyone.
When the girl was 6, her mother noticed that her daughter often had pain when urinating and frequently complained of stomachaches. A visit to a local clinic confirmed that the girl had been the victim of sexual assault.
When a nurse noticed that the little girl’s private parts discharged pus, she recommended an HIV test. When it came back positive, the girl’s paternal grandparents told her mother not to put her on antiretroviral medication because it would tarnish the reputation of their wealthy, well-known family.
Despite the knowledge of the family, the sexual abuse continued. Finally, when the girl became so sick that her mother described her private parts as “rotting,” she took her daughter to the Nairobi Women’s Hospital, where she underwent surgery. When the community discovered that her father was responsible for the abuse, her mother says she had no choice but to report him to the police.
But when he was arrested, she admits to bribing the police to earn his release within 24 hours.
The girl, who is now 15, says that justice has not been served. Her mother continues to protect her husband, saying she needs his support to put food on the table.
According to the girl’s counselor, the sexual abuse has stopped, but verbal abuse and sexual harassment continue.
Gender-based violence affects nearly half of women in Kenya, where a so-called culture of silence leads families to not only accept, but also to perpetrate violence. Although the Sexual Offences Act of 2006 improved past laws on violence, some say it wasn’t tough enough. Activists say more needs to be done to transform the act from paper into progress.
Gender-based violence is defined as any physical, sexual or psychological violence that occurs within the family or general community, according to the latest Kenya Demographic and Health Survey, KDHS, which was published by the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics last year. Almost half of Kenyan women ages 15 to 49 reported having experienced either sexual or physical violence or both.
The survey found that the majority of violence against women is perpetrated by people they know.
One in five, or 21 percent, reported having experienced sexual violence, according to the survey. The majority of sexual violence occurs within relationships, with two-thirds reporting current or former husbands, partners or boyfriends as their perpetrators and only 6 percent naming strangers. The survey also noted that 12 percent of the women reported that their first sexual intercourse was forced against their will.
Of the women who reported having experienced physical violence – almost 40 percent – the majority of perpetrators were also people they knew. Of women who have been married, the top three perpetrators were current husbands and partners; former husbands and partners; and mothers and stepmothers. Of women who have never been married, the main perpetrators were teachers; mothers and stepmothers; and fathers and stepfathers.
The survey also noted that the most prevalent violence reported, spousal violence, is not a one-time issue, but a current and recurring problem for Kenyan women. Of the women who had reported having ever experienced physical or sexual violence, 82 percent reported having experienced it during the 12 months leading up to the survey. And 22 percent of them reported that the violence occurred often.
Even after the Sexual Offences Act of 2006, a law that outlaws sexual gender-based violence such as rape, defilement and sexual harassment, most cases are still mediated by family, religious advisers and other community members, who frequently encourage women to return to violent homes. The survey detected a culture of silence in Kenya, as women are socialized to accept, tolerate and rationalize domestic violence and to keep silent about it.
According to a United Nations Population Fund report, women have many reasons for not reporting violence against them. Many women are unaware of their rights, legal authorities seldom take action when violence is reported, health care centers and police keep inconsistent records and the majority of women have relationships with their perpetrators, according to the report. Violence against women occurs mostly within the privacy of their own homes, which creates a culture of silence as well as a gap between policy-making and effective programmatic responses.
The Sexual Offences Act was passed by more than 60 members of Parliament, MPs, in 2006. Some say it was an improvement from past laws, but its passage also provoked anger among other female MPs, who accused their male counterparts of diluting the bill.
Njoki Ndungu, a nominated MP behind the act who even drew on her personal finances to fund it, said that the act was still a success for women. Sexual violence is rampant in Kenya, and the previous law did not adequately deal with it, according to Ndungu in a 2006 interview.
The new act includes 14 new offenses, including gang rape, deliberate infection with HIV/AIDS, trafficking for sexual exploitation and child pornography, she says. It also introduced minimum sentences and set up a DNA data bank.
But other female MPs were not happy with the protections removed from the act, according to BBC News.
Beth Mugo, an assistant minister at the time and the current minister for public health and sanitation, called the final version a shell of the original bill.
MPs removed the clause that outlawed marital rape because they said there was no way that nonconsensual intercourse could occur between loving spouses. The act now states: “This section shall not apply in respect to persons who are lawfully married to each other.”
Although the majority of men ages 15 to 49 in the KDHS disagreed, 27 percent responded that a husband has a right to get angry with his wife and reprimand her for not wanting to have sex.
MPs also argued that forced female circumcision was already contained in the Children’s Act and, therefore, deleted it from the Sexual Offences Act. According to the KDHS, female genital cutting, which has been reduced since the last survey in 2003, still stands at 27 percent, even though 82 percent of women surveyed said they believed that the practice should be stopped.
MPs also amended a provision that would have made it illegal for pharmacists to dispense drugs that could be used to overpower another person to engage in sexual activity. The assistant minister at the time, Bonny Khalwale, who is also a doctor, fought to have the clause amended so that pharmacists did not end up in jail for doing their work.
Male MPs feared the bill in its original form would have increased false accusations, according to BBC News. MP Paddy Ahenda at the time also said it would have discouraged men from courting women.
Despite the disagreements regarding the 2006 act, new measures are slowly being put into place. The government is trying to set up a 24-hour emergency call line under the Ministry of Gender to report sexual offenses, according to Dr. Mwatha Regina, chairwoman of the National Commission on Gender and Development, a governmental institution charged with realizing gender equality.
Kenya has made progress in addressing gender-based violence, according to Esther Murugi Mathenge, minister for gender, children and social development at the time and current minister for special programs, in her speech last March at the 54th Session of the Commission on the Status of Women at the U.N. headquarters in New York. The government has redrafted and redefined gender-responsive laws, such as the Family Protection Bill of 2009, Marriage Bill of 2009 and Matrimonial Property Bill of 2009, she said. The government has also developed a National Framework Towards Response and Prevention of Gender-Based Violence and established the Gender Violence Recovery Centre and the Gender-Based Violence Information System.
Mathenge said that these and other measures had contributed to the 11.1 percent decline in gender-based violence cases between 2005 and 2009 and the 5 percent decline in female genital mutilation between 2003 and 2009.
But others point out that this violence increased during the post-election violence in 2007 and 2008, when a disputed presidential election led to widespread violence.
Dr. Sam Thenya, chief executive officer of Nairobi Women’s Hospital, says that during the violence that erupted after the 2007 presidential election, the hospital treated 443 survivors of violence – the majority of which were rape victims – and reached out to an additional 2,416 survivors through its partners, such as the Kenya Red Cross Society.
Thenya says the hospital established its free Gender Violence Recovery Centre in 2001 to provide free medical treatment and psychosocial support to survivors of violence. The center has treated more than 16,260 survivors of sexual and domestic violence, with an average of 260 survivors per month. The majority are women and children, who range in age from 1 month to 105.
Regina says it is not enough to have the Sexual Offences Act on paper, but it also needs to be implemented.
She is calling for a new curriculum to train police, public servants and court members on the Sexual Offences Act and its application to their work. She says the commission has been working on a public awareness program aimed at, among other things, encouraging people to report incidents of sexual violence, which are generally underreported, she says.
Regina says the commission is also formulating a national development policy that will help it to carry out an investigation of gender-based violence in Kenya and lobbying for necessary amendments of various women’s and children’s rights laws. To break the silence about these issues, the government needs to mainstream gender and children’s rights programs, as well as engage young men in the prevention of and response to gender-based violence, she says.
Kenyan women have not been adequately empowered, she says, while the gender mainstreaming has not been given sufficient attention, leading to poor economic rights and employment opportunities for women.
Nongovernmental organizations, NGOs, have also done what they can to reduce gender-based violence. One NGO, Family Health Options Kenya, FHOK, formerly Family Planning Association of Kenya, monitors girls’ safety through the help of community policing, says Caroline Chelagat, FHOK’s gender-based violence coordinator.
One of the girls helped by FHOK is the one who was abused throughout her childhood by her father.
“We feel that this is absurd, the father is denying this young girl her privacy of discovering herself, making unwanted sexual comments, which makes her uncomfortable, and has already exposed her to early adulthood,” Chelagat says.
She says they are now working with the International Justice Mission, a U.S.-based human rights agency, since the Kenyan justice system has proved ineffective in helping the girl.
Meanwhile, the girl sat for her Kenya Certificate of Primary Education this year. She says she hopes she will pass her examination so that she can gain admission to a boarding school and leave home.
FHOK has already pledged to help pay her school fees, Chelagat says.
