Voice of the Voiceless
20 months ago, 3 of our young girls were threatened with a machete, tied up, and the 11 year old was raped and sodomised by a man in his mid twenties.
Initially, the police were not interested because it happened in Mwakirunge where the garbage site is situated and where it is seen as ‘normal’… ’it’s what happens to people who live or survive on the dumpsite.
With the help of our manager Peter, we pushed. We involved the Children’s Dept. who supported our case. We had dna evidence from the hospital where Mary (not her real name) was taken 2 days after the event because the girls were too traumatised to tell anyone. There were witness statements from people.
The guy initially did a runner from the village our centre is located in and disappeared for several months. But we didn’t give up. We prayed he would be caught, and finally he was. Peter was given a tip off by the motorbike riders in another town to say they had spotted him. He informed the police where the guy was…they were ’too busy’ to go arrest him, and besides that they ’had no transport’!
Peter went on a motorbike and told the guy he was an undercover policeman who had come to arrest him and advised him to go quietly for his own sake. Peter took him on a motorbike to the police station where he was formally arrested. The girls identified him and he was charged.
The court case has been going on for over a year now, but today he was finally found guilty and sentenced to 20 years in prison, minus the time he has spent ton remand.
We are so happy for Mary and the two other girls who were subjected to this ordeal… justice has been done. We are happy and this sends a message to women and girls in Mwakirunge that this is not normal and it should not be happening to them. When the police interviewed the mum, she said it would be ok if the man just apologised. We are happy because it sends a message to men that this behaviour is wrong and it will be punished.
Yet we are sad this happened and pray the man begins to realise that what he did was not ok. We are sad for his mother who asked us to give her £2000 so the case against her son would ‘disappear’! We are grateful the family were never able to raise that amount of money for that to happen.
This is what Gap Kenya does. These are the people we work with… the most vulnerable, downtrodden women and children who have no voice… we are their voice. 20 months is a long time to keep the case going, speaking to the DPP, the Children’s Officers, the police. We are so glad it’s now over.
