The harrowing tales of incest in Kenyan families

A new documentary on incest makes for a disturbing viewing. The 33-minute video exposes an issue whose incidence is growing in Kenya although its impact on victims is hardly ever discussed.

Titled Stop Incest, the Xplode Media production that has since been posted on YouTube, and which was drawn to this writer’s attention by consultant obstetrician and gynaecologist Jean Kagia, addresses a social problem that’s rampant in families but is kept secret to preserve ‘family respect’.

Yours truly is privy to a case where she tried to get a perpetrator arrested. To her shock, the child’s grandmother would not cooperate since the minor and her defiler were siblings. The offender escaped arrest for lack of a complainant!

Dr Kagia, who is also the chairperson of Protecting Life Movement Trust (PLMT) that commissioned the documentary, granted this writer permission to share the video. It documents heart-rending cases of fathers abusing children as young as three days.

The tragedy is that parents are complicit in their children’s abuse—like the girl who told her mother that a cousin had defiled her. The mother took no action, and when she escalated the matter to her father, he called a family meeting at which she was blamed for the sexual attack. “They told me to go marry my cousin,” she said.

The taboo nature of incest prevents people from discussing it except in hushed tones. The hush-hush fuels cases of blood relatives sexually assaulting children.

Ms Alberta Wambua, the executive director of the Gender Violence Recovery Centre (GVRC) at Nairobi Women’s Hospital, says incest in the family setting tends to be repeated violence where the child is threatened, thus unable to share her plight. She’s left confused because the perpetrator is a person supposed to protect her.

Also read: Ugandan villagers flog cousins in incest cleansing ritual

Mr Dominic Kisavi, Staff Officer and Director of Operations at the National Police Service headquarters, cites Section 20 and 21 of the Sexual Offences Act, No 3 of 2006: “Any person who commits an indecent act or an act that causes penetration with a female person, who, to his knowledge, is a daughter, a granddaughter, a sister, mother, niece, aunt or grandmother, is guilty of an offence of incest and such a person is liable for a term of not less than 10 years.”

Kenya Assemblies of God Pastor David Njeru says the Bible prohibits incest. Dr David Oginde, Bishop Emeritus at Citam, adds a scientific angle. While incest is forbidden from a religious perspective, scientifically, having a sexual relationship with a person who is related to you has consequences. “In fact, we shouldn’t allow animals to inbreed.”

Blind trust

So, why is incest so rampant? Ms Ann Mbugua, an Advocate of the High Court of Kenya, cites blind trust.

“You leave a child with a grandfather. Those should be safe hands… or with an uncle, cousin, and without many questions.”

Reverend Dr Matthews Kalola Mwal’wa laments: “You don’t know who to trust anymore. Who has destroyed us? Who has taken away the morals? Who has crushed the fibre that we stand on?”

He links incest to society’s failure to strengthen the male child—the perpetrator. He says church programmes target the girl child. While this is logical given that girls have been targets of abuse, the boy child has taken “his rightful position and authority to destroy the rival”—the girl child.

National Chairman of the Fellowship of Christian Unions (Focus) Simon Kande says most victims blame trusted family members for molesting them while young. Either their parents were busy at work and left them with uncles, or they visited cousins who seduced them with goodies, “as basic as sweets”.

Mr Tobias Nauruki Olekina of Family Watch International and UN Family Caucus Africa Regional Coordinator associates incest with poverty with most families living below the poverty line. Drug and substance abuse, especially in vulnerable urban and rural communities is also blamed, with Dr Eda Tatu, the director of Wastahili Family Wellness Centre, citing pornography.

How else does one explain a man who views his daughter as a woman? It’s ‘a twisted mind’ that looks at an eight or 10-year-old as a woman, she says, blaming addiction on pornography.

Incest theories abound, with Leshan Kereto, founder and CEO Tareto Africa, blaming cowardice: “You’re not man enough, so you take advantage of young girls who can’t say, No.”

Dr Ruth Laibon Masha, CEO of the National Syndemic Disease Control Council (formerly National Aids Control Council), says incest happens in ‘perfect homes’ that “desire to be perfect in the public eye”. Talking incest is shameful in a wealthy family that regards itself as honourable.

Meanwhile, statistics from Kenya National GBV hotline 1195 show that incest is a significant problem. The data indicates that 106 girls were sexually molested at home between January 2018 and June 2021 with 59, the highest reported number, attributed to fathers.

Mr Kisavi remarks: “What we have in our police records is a small fraction of all the cases that take place [in this country]”. Many other cases go unreported.

Last year, Dr Kagia notes, there was hue and cry that because of lockdown due to Covid, teenage pregnancies increased. But who is making these girls pregnant, she posed? Dr Tatu says it has to be a family member. Further investigation shows that incest in Kenya is fuelled by silence, stigma, shame, and people who keep quiet about it.

Also read: Incest: A tale of families’ dark secrets behind closed doors

Ironically, fathers are the worst perpetrators of incest at home, a place meant to provide safety for the child, Dr Tatu notes. The family is the bedrock of society, and the father is supposed to be the protector and provider—the one who affirms the children. He’s the keeper of the family’s moral code, with protection as Number 1.

Hair-raising cases are cited of victims suffering in silence as those they trust turn them into sex tools while enjoying family protection.

Pastor Flora Mwikali, New Scent Shelter International director, cites the case of a girl, who was only seven when her father and grandfather started abusing her. The outcome was so extreme that it triggered diabetes in the child.

Beaten unconscious and defiled

The pastor also reveals the harrowing case of a girl defiled routinely by her father. A few days before she was rescued, he would molest her from midnight to 6.30am—after beating her unconscious. “He would then tell her, ‘it’s you who has made me do this to you.’”

Dr Tatu has a similar tale—of a father who made his daughter pregnant three times with her mother having her abort until a teacher in whom she confided rescued her.

Maternal complicity is a big issue. Dr Kagia cites a 10-year-old who confided to her mother that her father was defiling her, only to get a thorough beating from both parents! “Never tell anybody,” they warned her.

But there are exceptions. Ms Monica Kimani, a counsellor in Kangema, knows a mother who didn’t spare her partner for defiling her child. She got him apprehended and took the child to Nairobi Women’s Hospital for treatment and counselling.

Silence is the biggest obstacle to ending incest. As Ms Wambua of the GVRC notes, the child is threatened, thus unable to share, more so because the perpetrator is supposed to protect her. Ms Kimani says the father will continue molesting the child and when it’s finally exposed, it will be too late. The child’s emotional and psychological scars become difficult to bear.

Kiambu Institute of Science and Technology Chaplain Sammy Kaihuri narrates the case of a girl routinely assaulted by her father, uncle and cousins until she sought the pastor’s help. By and large, however, the cycle of intimidation and fear continues… “because this person is providing shelter for you; this person is providing food; this person is providing your basic needs; this person is meeting your school fees… They intimidate you; you’re unable to speak out.”

Tragically, a child exposed to sex at an early age gets used to it and becomes casual about it, Pastor Kaihuri says. Mr Kande of Focus concurs. Some incest survivors are not good socially. They can’t trust people. They suffer from depressive thoughts. Incest steals a child’s life, Dr Masha adds.

That’s why PLMT “cannot keep quiet while this is happening,” Dr Kagia says, explaining the multi-stakeholder approach used to produce the documentary.

PLMT is working with GVRC to provide free psychosocial support to incest survivors. “We also try to influence practices, laws and policies across the country,” Dr Wambua says.

Religious institutions like the National Council of Churches of Kenya, the Kenya Conference of Catholic Bishops and the Evangelical Alliance of Kenya are partners in Stop Incest campaign.

PLMT worked with senior Kenya National Union of Teachers officers in preparing the documentary while the Teachers Service Commission offered to structure it for nationwide dissemination.

The Co-operative Bank of Kenya financed the video shooting with NSDCC contributing to the content. The multi-stakeholder approach enhances accountability in the family and the community, Dr Masha says.

Ms Kweyu is a consulting editor and contributor to Nation publications ([email protected]).