I will call her Jane Doe to protect her identity. At the tender age of 14 Jane Doe’s virginity was taken away by her neighbour in Nairobi’s Mathare Area 4.
This beastly act happened in August this year when Jane Doe had traveled to Nairobi to help her aunt who had suffered stroke.
Too traumatised to speak, Jane Doe says that her abuser then held a knife on her and told her not to dare tell anyone.
“I was going to the toilet, then the man who just lives next door grabbed me by the hand and took me to his house, he then shut the door,” narrates Jane Doe.
“After shutting the door he then removed the white bed sheets held a knife on me and defiled me. He then threatened me and told me that if i told anyone, he will kill me,” she says.
Her aunt had hoped that her place in Mathare was going to be a fortress of safety for Jane Doe who escaped a violent and abusive step father. Only for the place to leave her with a permanent scar that even time may not heal.
“When i suffered stroke, i could not perform any duties including putting on my clothes,” she says.
“So i requested my sister to give me her daughter to help me only for this heinous crime to happen to her,” she says.
Records from the MSF Hospital in Mathare where Jane Doe had been taken for examination show confirmed that she had been raped.
The perpertrator was then arrested only for him to be released and taken back to the very same building Jane Doe lived.
There are no official statistics on the number of cases of violence against women and girls in Kenya, but calls to helplines have surged more than 10-fold since lockdown measures were imposed in late March.
The sexual offences act 2006 stipulates that a person who commits an offence of defilement shall upon conviction be sentenced to imprisonment for life.
Jane Doe’s aunt says that she is currently caught between a rock and a hard place. She either tells her sister and lose her only niece or continue keeping the heinous secret from her sister and continue fighting for justice.
