A mother’s 17-year fight for justice after her daughter was defiled
Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital in Eldoret, Uasin Gishu County.
What you need to know:
- A mother from Trans Nzoia is still fighting for justice; Her family and that of the suspect colluded to frustrate the case, leading to its closure under Section 202, but a human rights organisation now seeks to revive it.
- The search for justice after her one-year-eleven-month-old daughter was brutally assaulted was thwarted when relatives hid the child to prevent her attending court. The suspect still lives freely in the village, while the survivor continues to face stigma.
The scream that pierced through the homestead in Kipsigilai-Kachibora, Trans Nzoia County, 17 years ago still haunts CT*. What she witnessed when she rushed to the sound shattered her world and set her on a lonely quest for justice – one her own family would try to block.
CT had left her one-year-eleven-month-old daughter playing in the kitchen while she worked a manual job at a former councillor’s homestead. She needed the money desperately – a dog bite from her brother’s pet required a rabies injection she could not afford.
“I left my child playing in the kitchen before she crawled towards the living room where relatives of my employer were relaxing. Shortly, I heard my baby scream,” CT recalls.
She found her daughter in the lap of a man known to the family. He was covering the child’s mouth. When he saw her, he dropped the toddler and began zipping his trousers. The baby writhed in pain, blood oozing from her private parts.
CT grabbed her daughter and fled, raising an alarm. A villager helped her get fare to rush the child to a nearby health centre, then to Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital in Eldoret, where doctors operated on the toddler. She remained admitted for over a month.
CT filed a case at Kachibora Police Station. The Director of Public Prosecutions recommended prosecution. Justice seemed within reach. Then her own blood turned against her.
“My own family members conspired with the perpetrator’s family to bar me from accessing court,” CT says. “They would hide my child on court days, leading to frequent adjournments. The court eventually closed the file under Section 202 of the Penal Code.”
The alleged perpetrator walks free in the same village. According to CT, he has issued death threats against her and even suggested that the now 19-year-old victim should marry him.
The stigma has followed the young woman through childhood and into adulthood.
“Whenever I walk around, I hear people saying, ‘That is the girl who was defiled at a tender age.’ These remarks hurt. I need justice,” she says.
Now, the Eldoret-based Centre for Human Rights and Mediation has stepped in. Nick Omito from the organisation says they plan to petition the court to revive the case.
*Name changed to protect the privacy of the girl.
