Child victims suffer as parents, in-laws fight over incest

By 9pm on August 28, 2023, Mula* and his family had finished having supper at their home in one of the sub-counties in Busia County.

Three of his children aged 19, 12 and six had gone to sleep. He has 11 children, four of whom are from the second wife, currently estranged, and seven from the first wife, whom he lives with. His firstborn son, aged 27, was away.

He and his wife were watching television when he returned home at around 9.30pm drunk. He roughly opened the door and shut it with a bang. They ignored him owing to his usual rowdy behaviour after taking alcohol, bhang and other narcotics he wouldn’t put a name to.

About a quarter to 10pm when he was about to sleep, he went round his compound to ensure all the houses, including the children's, were properly locked. He noticed something strange in the house where the six-year-old son and the 12-year-old daughter sleep. The door was wide open. The rest of the houses, for the firstborn and third-born son (the 19-year-old), were locked.

“I wondered why the door would be open at that time of the night. My homestead is fenced, who would have entered their house?” he says.

When he checked, he discovered his daughter was missing from her bed. He assumed she had gone to relieve herself. The latrine is a few yards away. He checked, she wasn’t there. He also looked at a vacant house adjacent to the latrine where she changed her clothes, she wasn’t there.

At this point, he was trembling. He returned to the house to inform his wife and together they decided to only raise the alarm after searching all the houses in the compound. The 27-year-old son’s house and the children’s, where the 12-year-old girl slept, were a few yards apart.

He asked his wife to go listen if there was any noise coming from the house. The son had recently separated from his wife, and would regularly turn up with a hook-up.

Also read: The harrowing tales of incest in Kenyan families

“She heard noise and we decided to find out who the person was,” he says.

He woke up three young men from the neighbourhood to help him retrieve the person inside as he feared he would overpower him. Mula said his body has been weak since he was involved in a motorbike accident two years ago.

To his shock, it was his daughter in his half-brother’s house. The daughter is from the second family and the son, the first. “I cannot even describe how I felt, but for a moment I felt like I had lost oxygen, like I was numb and about to faint. I didn't know what to do or say.”

A while later, he pulled his daughter aside, beat her up while demanding to know why she went to her half-brother’s house late at night.

“She said, ‘it's X (name withheld) who instructed me to serve him food and once I got into the house, he locked the door and warned me against raising the alarm,’’’ he says.

He didn’t speak with X (the son). The night was long. He didn’t sleep a wink. He says he felt he was being strangled.

By 7am the following day, he had summoned the assistant chief and the Nyumba Kumi leader, who advised him to report the incident at a nearby police station. Later, he took her daughter to a sub-county hospital where she was examined.

By then, the son had escaped to a nearby village. The police instructed him to find and bring him to the station, which he did. That was the beginning of his nightmare back at home.

All hell broke loose upon his return with his daughter at about 9pm. They had made statements at the police station and the police dropped them off.

His wife’s stand on punishing the son had changed, despite their unanimous decision hours earlier. “She was very violent. She was shouting at us saying my daughter and I cannot spend a night in the homestead while her son was held behind bars,” he says.

“I had to call the police to come back for us. They took us to N (a local activist; name withheld) and she agreed to accommodate my daughter but told me to return home,” Mula says.

“I don’t know peace anymore. I wish I had another home. The constant bickering, insults and threats of wanting to throw me out of my homestead are just too much. I’m going to lose my head.”

It’s been a tug of war between them. The wife wants her son to be released without charge, but Mula has stood his ground that his son must be punished for violating his half-sister. He, however, would wish to have his son reformed instead of being jailed.

He says he wants him to regain his normal behaviour and return home to take care of his three children. He describes him as “an obedient, hardworking and quick-to-act child when he is sober”.

Asked about the status of the case, Mula says he has never gone back to the police station as his anger towards the son is still indescribable. He doesn’t wish to set his eyes on him. He is only awaiting the court’s judgment, he says.

Legal redress

The Sexual Offences Act (2006) prescribes a jail term of not less than 20 years for anyone who defiles a child aged 12 to 15.

While Mula’s marriage is on the edge of the cliff, Lilian’s* fell nearly three years ago after she refused to protect her husband who had defiled her daughter for too long.

The abuse started in 2017 when the daughter was only nine and went on until 2020, when she would no longer hold the consequent trauma.

The girl’s biological father would force himself on her when her mother was away in the market where she sold dried food. It takes less than 30 minutes to walk from their home to the market, both of which are in Busia County.

So, on one Sunday after lunch, she headed for the market, leaving her behind with the father. When she returned home some minutes after 6pm, her daughter wasn’t in the house. Neither would she locate her at her grandmother’s house a stone’s throw away.

About an hour later, her brother-in-law informed her that the girl had run away to her uncle’s place in the neighbouring village. She went to collect her, only for her to fall into her arms, crying hysterically.

Moments later, the girl opened up to her mother and begged her not to confront her father as he had warned her of dire consequences should she report him. That he would exterminate the whole family.

The minor said she had told her paternal grandmother and aunties, hoping they would inform her mother. Later, the mother said, her mother-in-law confessed to her to have swept the abuse under the carpet to protect her son. She also cautioned her against mentioning it to anyone and instead advised her to forgive and forget.

When she returned home past 9pm, she was burning with anger but remained stoic. When the husband asked whether she had found her, she said the daughter would return if she willed, which raised his suspicion.

Unaware, he had sharpened a machete and placed it behind the door. He pulled it out and used it to command her around, demanding that they cook chicken instead of the fish she had prepared.

The arrival of some men seeking his audience at that time of the night saved her. She took a cock, slid behind the house, cut it and escaped through the bushes to his brother-in-law's home.

The following day, he reported him to the local chief and he was arrested. Due to threats from the family of wanting to eliminate her and her daughter, they sought refuge at a local activist’s home. Rights activists, too, followed up on the case. Last year, the husband was found guilty, and jailed for 50 years.

Mula and Lilian are ‘rare gems’ in the fight against defilement and incest in Busia County. Mary Makokha, who has fought sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV) in the county, says the duo can only be described as champions of change.

“In Busia, when it comes to incest, the family gives you two options: marriage or keeping quiet,” says Mary, the executive director of Rural Education and Economic Enhancement Programme.

“Lilian stood before court and testified against her husband. That is rare here. I applaud them for having the courage and bearing it all to defend the rights of their daughters. Other parents should take their cue from them,” she says.

Equality Now regional coordinator for Africa Judy Gitau says ending sexual violence requires consistent awareness of its ills.

“Counties should also develop policies to provide a clear framework of their role in responding to sexual violence and providing survivors and witnesses protection as they appear in court,” she says.

Meanwhile, the county, through director for gender Brenda Maketso, says it is in the process of developing specific policies on SGBV.

Information likely to lead to identifying sources interviewed here have been censored as cases of defilement and incest in Busia County attract fatal retaliation.

*Names changed to protect the identities of the victims.

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