A mother’s cry for justice as GBV perpetrators roam
Jane*, a survivor of GBV. Her daughter was defiled. PHOTO: WON.
By Erick Maranga
When Jane* joined college, her peasant parents hopped she will rescue them from abject poverty as their lastborn daughter upon completion and securing a job.
Ms Jane, 26, who hails from Kisii County joined by the Gusii Institute of Technology, now Kisii National Polytechnic, to pursue a certificate in mechanical engineering in the year 2010; she failed in one subject, therefore could not graduate. Due to lack of school fees, she deferred completing studies.
“I failed one unit because I missed lessons as I was out most of the time due to school fees,” she notes.
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The parent refused to support her in the retake of the failed unit. She resigned to a home filled with ridicule from parents and siblings. In addition to being denied basic needs, she was asked to leave because she is a ‘woman’ who needs to be at her own home. She had leave.
She moved into marriage in December 2016 with a man living in Nairobi. Things were running smoothly until she gave birth to a baby girl in October 2017. Trouble started. Her sin was giving birth to a baby girl instead of a boy.
“In our society, girls are considered to be of lower value than boys. My husband wanted a baby boy and nothing less,” she narrated with breaks of sobbing.
Jane stuck around, but things got worse; the husband started coming late and drunk, at times it was no show. Questions in is where-abouts earned her beatings and strings of insults. The man stopped providing for the family; life became unbearable forcing her to leave the marriage and look for job back in her rural home.
She settled at Ogembo town and secured employed as a casual labourer at Ogembo Tea Factory. She was given accommodation by the management at servant quarters mostly occupied by permanent employees for two months. She moved out and rented outside the factory.
The daughter was three. One evening, when she left her alone in the house to buy supper, the child innocently went to her male neighbour’ house- a workmate at the factory. The man took advantage to defile the child.
“Upon return I found her seated beside the door looking withdrawn; I entered the house with her and prepared supper. She didn’t eat. I mistook it for lack of appetite,” Jane recalls.
On the following day while she was bathing her daughter she cried saying uncle “did it”.
The man was around. She confronted him; the man become rude and violent.
“Upon questioning he gave me a life-threatening look. I could tell he was likely to hit me hard; I was quick to apologise, but rushed the baby to nearby health centre,” she notes.
The nurses confirmed defilement and advised her to report to police.
Ms Jane reported the case to the police station and the suspect was arrested. He spent two days before being released on a cash bail of Sh200,000.
“I was shocked when he accused me of using my daughter as an excuse to get money from him, I couldn’t believe it,” she said.
While out, the man chest-thumbed on how much money he as to defeat the course of justice; Threats to the mother and the child, forcing her to flee to Nairobi.
While in Nairobi, a lawyer working with an organisation working against gender-based violence. The case dragged over a year as the perpetrator tried to evade justice by feigning sickness, his lawyer missing court, among other cases.
He was found guilty, but released on condition that he will be jailed if he commits the offence again.
Ms Jane argues that her five-year-old child’s justice was sold. They are also living in fear as the man roams after buying freedom.
The cases of Jane and her daughter reflect an iceberg of sexual and other forms of gender-based violence where perpetrators elude justice due to vulnerability of the survivors.
According to Equality Now, at least 40 percent of women are likely face gender-based violence in life-time.
Gender Based Recovery Centre estimates that one in three women has experienced sexual violence before attaining the age of 18.
In Kenya over 3,000 cases of gender-based violence are reported annually, hence among the top globally.
