Trauma of children defiled and infected with HIV, STI in Busia
The great-grandmother shares the horrifying experience of her great-grandchild defiled and infected with HIV by a son of her brother-in-law, on August 1, 2024.
What you need to know:
- The seven-year-old who lives with her great-grandmother, was defiled by the son of her great-grandmother’s brother–in-law.
- The sixteen-year-old was defiled by so-called ‘pastor or prophet’.
In the quiet plantations of maize, cassava and sugarcane in Busia County, children are crying for justice following inhumane treatment.
Here, two children, aged seven and 16 have been defiled and infected with HIV and undisclosed sexually transmitted infection (STI).
Last year, Luia*, the seven-year-old girl who lives with her great-grandmother, Julia*, was defiled by the son of her great-grandmother’s brother–in-law. Julia described the culprit, aged above 30, as a notorious bhang user.
Julia came to discover in July when she noticed Luia straddle. She was shaken when she checked her. “Her private parts were in a horrible state,” she said during an interview last week.
She took her to a sub-county hospital and it’s after the third test that the nurse shocked her with the news that Luia had been infected with HIV.
“For a while, I was delirious. I had to sit down because my body couldn’t withstand the shock. I howled in excruciating pain,” Julia narrates her immediate reaction to the disclosure of her great-grandchild’s status.
She said she became her guardian at six months when her intellectually disabled mother abandoned her. She had been defiled, and Luia was born out of the crime.
“It hurts me so deeply. I have raised her well. Why did he choose to brutalise her?” she asked.
The suspect was arrested and later released on bond. Julia suspects he fled to Uganda where he had been staying before he came to Kenya for a visit.
“I was deeply shocked to learn that he had been released on bond. I asked myself: ‘Don’t the poor deserve justice?’ Why could they release him without informing us? This is a criminal who had defiled and infected my great granddaughter with HIV. He has wrecked her life,” she decried.
The same cry torments 16-year-old teenager Charlene* who was only out to help a ‘pastor or prophet’.
Early last May, her mother allowed her to assist his wife who had suffered a leg injury. At the time, they had a three-year-old baby.
His welcome was repeat defilement on the couch in the sitting room. He started on the first night, and committed this crime with his wife in the same house.
A 16-year-old girl defiled and infected by a 'pastor/prophet' in Busia County, on August 1, 2024.
“I was afraid of confiding in his wife. I was convinced she could not believe me, and she could hate me for ‘falsely’ accusing her husband,” she said.
Tired of the persistent abuse, she fled back home in early last June. She, however, didn’t reveal to her mother the reason for her abrupt return.
“My mother’s trust in him is beyond reproach. There is no way she would believe me,” she said.
Days later, she started experiencing pain around her pelvis and groin area.
It’s only her class teacher who came to discover what happened to her after she realised a change in her behaviour from a jovial to a gloomy girl.
She confided in her after which they informed her mother who was regrettably shocked.
Thereafter, they sought medical help and she was found to have been infected with an STI, which Charlene said the nurse didn’t specify.
The purported ‘pastor and prophet’ was arrested and is currently in police custody.
“I want him to be convicted to a lifetime in prison. He’s evil; very evil, and my life will never be the same again,” Charlene said.
*Their identities changed to protect the victims from further harm.
