Jane Njeri was 11 when her stepfather defiled her. She had known him as her father from a young age when her mother married her abuser. She was already four months pregnant when her case was brought to my attention. Her case was reported to the police and her father was arrested. She then underwent a lot of pressure to have an abortion and recant her statement that implicated him as her rapist from her family. At this point, she was placed in a children’s home for girls who have been raped to keep her safe from the risk of being disappeared as she was the key witness in the trial.

Jane stayed at the children’s home for several months as the court case proceeded where she gave birth to twin boys. Through DNA tests and her testimony in court, her father was found guilty and sentenced to 20 years in prison. Jane is now at her grandmother’s rural home, unable to go back to school because she comes from a poor family and is surviving by doing manual labour in homes and farms.

Jane’s case is not isolated, every week, I receive four to five cases of children aged between 3 and 12 years who have been raped, both boys and girls. In many cases, the girls get pregnant and their lives come to a standstill because they have to take care of their children. I have dealt with situations where some of these girls are taken to Secretive abortion clinics to have abortions in order for them to go back to school. Abortion being illegal in Kenya forces these girls to use crude and unsafe methods to terminate their pregnancies. This is especially so in our informal settlements(slums) where there is a booming economy around illicit abortion clinics. Over 2,600 girls and women die due to unsafe abortion in Kenya annually according to the Center for Reproductive Rights and over 120,000 face complications due to unsafe methods.

The boys on the other hand usually require corrective surgery because of the damage caused during rape. They then have to live with the stigma associated with being abused. In a society like ours, where the rape of men and boys is never discussed, the abusers don’t face justice because cases go unreported. Those that are reported rarely get to court. The boys are usually forced to settle out of court by being offered money in exchange for their silence.

We have a huge child rape problem in Kenya. Our justice system is extremely slow and corrupt, with cases staying in court for years. Sometimes, unless there is public, media and pressure from activists, some cases are never concluded as the survivors give up on making the numerous court appearances needed for a case to conclude. In many instances, survivors of rape withdraw their cases because of threats from people who are related to the rapists. This happens because most rapists are well-known to their victims. In the past 10 years, I have had at least five cases of children who have been disappeared and are assumed to have been killed. One particular case I handled had a child who was 3 years raped and left for dead. She barely survived after undergoing corrective surgery. When she healed and returned to her community, she started receiving death threats to withdraw the case. I moved her and her family to a more secure place but a short while ago, I got information that she had been abused again as an act of revenge by people who are related to the suspect after he was found guilty and sentenced.

When I receive any rape cases, my first point of action is to take the children to the hospital for tests and treatment that involves the collection of samples (rape kit) and PREP(Pre-exposure prophylaxis) to prevent HIV infection. The survivor is then encouraged to report as most are usually under pressure not to. A police report is then done and the abuser is arrested. After investigations, the suspect is arraigned in court. The children are placed in children’s homes for their safety and to ensure they are not compromised until the case is concluded.

The biggest challenge I am currently experiencing is that most cases never receive justice. The lack of funds to pay for hospital procedures and the legal process makes it impossible to support many survivors. There is also a shortage of children’s homes that are able to handle the large numbers of cases received. The network of volunteers I work with is heavily overstretched too and even for the cases that we successfully prosecute, most survivors never go back to school because of lack of funds to pay school fees.

Going back to school for these children is usually the only hope they have to break the cycle of poverty and abuse that they live in. An education gives them an opportunity to get jobs that help them take care of themselves and their children. From my observation, when these young mothers are denied an education because they have to take care of their children, most families prefer to marry them off to reduce the burden brought about by extra mouths to feed.

At the moment, I am handling various cases in different stages in our legal system. Many have stalled because of lack of finances and most children will have to be released from the safety of the children’s home they are in, putting them at further risk of abuse as they have to go back to the environment that exposed them to the abuse.

How can the ISHR community help? To jumpstart many of the stalled cases and give care and support to these children, I will need to fundraise 4000 euros. This amount will not only ensure I can revive the campaign to push for justice but some of the children like Jane who need to go back to school will get an opportunity to do so. I will also be able to buy food and toiletries for the children’s home I partner with so the over 30 girls housed there will get their much-needed nutrition and hygiene.