She is disturbed and fears for her 15-year-old daughter. She is worried that the man may take her again and defile her as has been the case in the last three years.

The teenager is a victim of defilement and discloses that she has been sexually abused, on several occasions, by the perpetrator.

The suspect, who is married and already a father, sends her money for transport to go visit him. They were together in April this year, at his Kangemi residence in Nairobi where he works at a hotel.

She has a telephone line, which she says he registered for her.

“He sent me Sh4,000 so that I could go see him in Nairobi. I went and stayed with him for two months,” says the girl who was waiting to join Form One.

All this time, her widowed mother was very worried as she searched for her daughter.

After some time, she learned that she was in Nairobi with the man, the son of a chief from Angata Barikkoi Division in Trans Mara West Sub-county, Narok.

Rude answers

Her efforts to get her daughter back were met with rude answers, with the man in his 40s telling her to report wherever she can.

“He told me that his father is a chief and that I could take them nowhere,” said the mother of seven.

True to his words, the widow struggled to get justice for the two months that her daughter was away and her efforts to have police take action fell on deaf ears.

“I did not have the Sh40,000 they wanted for fuel so as to follow on the matter. I even took Sh5,000 to them, the only money I had then, but they rejected it,” says the 44-year-old woman.

Tired of dealing with police, she looked for Rift Valley Regional Commissioner’s phone number George Natembeya.

“On May 26, 2021, I called him and explained my case. He ordered that I be assisted. He assured me that the case would be sorted and told me to go see Trans Mara West Deputy County Commissioner Mohamed Noor. Three days after seeing Mr Noor, my daughter was returned to me,” says the woman, a subordinate staff in an institution based in Emurrua Dikirr.

Wasting time

We caught up with her at her rented house within the constituency, where she told of her harrowing experience as she searched for her daughter.

“The emotional torture I have undergone is too much. How do you rest when a man holding your daughter tells you to stop wasting your time because you will end up nowhere since his father is a chief?” she wonders.

She fears that even though her daughter returned home, she could be taken again because the suspect is still free.

“How do I rest when I know the vulture preying on my daughter is out there?” she wonders.

She notes that she gave the officers at Emurrua Dikirr all the details they needed for the case including a filled P3 form that indicated that the 15-year old girl had been defiled.

The suspect first took the girl in 2019 when she was only 13. He took her again when she was 14, and now the latest incident in April 2021.

“Last time, the suspect took her to Abosi Shopping Centre within Emurrua Dikirr where they used to spend the nights in lodgings,” she says.

Mr Noor told the nation.africa that the matter was reported at Emurrua Dikirr Police Station and the officers were to follow up and make arrests.

Follow up

Trans Mara East Deputy County Commissioner Buxton Mayabi, however, says he was not aware of the case but promised to follow up.

This is just one out of the many defilement cases reported in Narok County.

The devolved unit is among the leading counties in gender-based violence (GBV) cases, major among them defilement, Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) and early marriages.

Narok County also leads in the number of teen pregnancies, at 40 per cent, much higher than the average of 18 per cent nationally. The incidents are attributed to early marriages and illiteracy.

According to a Crime Violence and Prevention Rapid Appraisal report released in 2020, GBV is rampant in the county but many cases are not reported. The community tends to conceal such offenses, painting a false picture that they do not exist using cultural norms.

Perpetrators of early pregnancy include youth, prominent persons and some elderly men. The Covid-19 pandemic has worsened the situation, because children have been on long holidays.

Defilement

Data on child related crimes for 2018/2019 shows the prevalence of other forms of GBV meted on children including defilement, incest, FGM, sexual assault and sex exploitation.

During 2018/2019 calendar, Narok County recorded, among others, 971 cases of child neglect, 80 cases of child pregnancy, 77 cases of sex-related offenses (including defilement, incest, FGM, sexual assault and sex exploitation), 54 incidents of physical abuse, 32 cases of child marriage and 32 incidents of child abandonment.

Concerning pregnancies in particular, the Gender Technical Working Group (2018) estimated that 41 per cent of pregnancies are teenage pregnancies, with 422 cases coming from one sub-county.

These are mainly perpetrated by school principals and teachers as well as village elders, among others.

“Young girls who suffer early marriages are also vulnerable to assaults perpetrated by their husbands because they are not mature enough to embrace the full responsibility of being homemakers,” indicates the report.

Cases of pregnancy among girls aged under 20 years are high throughout the county. Narok South and Trans Mara West sub-counties though, have the highest rates, possibly due to the isolated traditional populations residing there.

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