Defilement cases drop in Bamba after Haki Yetu intervention

MK lives with her five siblings in a dilapidated structure that they call home in a village in Bamba ward, Ganze subcounty, Kilifi county.

The 15-year-old Grade 6 learner acts like the breadwinner because their father works odd jobs in Mombasa and their mother does the same in Chonyi.

The parents usually send whatever little they get home, which is sometimes not enough for the six children.

This situation leaves MK and her siblings vulnerable to sex pests who take advantage of their situation.

“They sometimes go for up to three days without food if their parents do not get something to send home,” Cleophas Masha, a teacher at the primary school MK attends, tells the Star.

MK’s cousin, SM, also attends the same school as MK.

He is 17 years old and in Class 8.

However, he is from a relatively more affluent family and sometimes helps MK with food whenever she goes for long without food.

It is these food favours that SM used to lure MK into his bed one night. He got her pregnant.

MK’s parents fumed when they heard the story and wanted to ostracise her.

“In fact they did. Until Haki Yetu Organisation came in and talked to the parents and counselled the two children involved in the mess,” Masha said.

After counselling, the parents calmed down and allowed MK to continue with her education.

They had initially wanted to marry her off to SM, her cousin, a taboo in many African societies.

Masha said this has been the case in Ganze.

Salama Fondo, a teacher at Muungano Primary School, also in Bamba, fears for three of her students who are sisters in the same area.

They are orphans and they live in a dilapidated house that has no door or lights. They too go up to three days without food sometimes.

“They are vulnerable to sex predators,” she warns.

Haki Yetu legal officer Triza Gacheru said the government should give special attention to Ganze subcounty as teenage pregnancies there are rampant mostly because of hunger.

Gacheru said Affirmative Action and Gender Cabinet Secretary Aisha Jumwa, who also hails from Kilifi and had a difficult childhood under the same circumstances, should be in the forefront in addressing the challenges girls in Kilifi go through.

“She comes from Kilifi. She knows the problems that girls are going through. The Ganze MP is doing too little. The schools are in deplorable state. They have no infrastructure and no water,” the legal officer said, although she noted things have improved since Haki Yetu started sensitisation campaigns in the area.

When a defilement case is reported in Bamba police station, victims have to travel 52km to Kilifi town for medical check-up.

And when the case is in court, the victims have to travel 52km to the Kilifi law courts, which most time is burdensome to the victim’s families who then end up giving up and resorting to local arrangements to sort out the matter.

“Before we started programmes in Bamba, there were many defilement cases that went unreported because parents of perpetrators and victims used to settle the matter at local level without involving authorities,” Gacheru said.

She said before their programmes that empowered women in the area, victims and their parents used to walk for up to a whole day to find justice because they could not afford fare to hospital or law courts.

This discouraged them and many resorted to solving defilement cases at local levels.

“Health facilities are few and far between. You can imagine the furthest village in Gede is 99km away from the Kilifi law courts,” Gacheru said.

Mirihini assistant chief Lenox Katana said the entry of Haki Yetu in Bamba helped reduce the number of early pregnancy cases and school dropout rates.

For instance, in 2022 there were 66 reported cases of defilement in Bamba compared to 81 in 2021.

He said the public sensitisation barazas that Haki Yetu have set up in the area have helped change the mind set of parents.

“Before, when a minor got pregnant, the parents used to ostracise her. They would either marry her off, or stop educating her leading to dropout cases,” Katana said.

However, with regular public baraza sessions, parents now have a better understanding and ways of dealing with teenage pregnancy cases.

“The community is now more informed and parents more responsible,” he said.

According to Priscillah Maitha, the Mwambani assistant chief, there are 40 women who have formed a group that goes round in schools talking to students and parents at home.

The group was facilitated by Haki Yetu Organisation.

“These women were trained by Haki Yetu and are now champions of children’s rights. They visit schools where they give talks about early pregnancies and marriages to the learners apart from having sessions with parents,” Maitha said.

She said more cases of defilement are now reported to police and that generally, the cases have reduced.

“In the past, there were more cases of defilement but less reported cases because the matters used to be solved locally without involving authorities,” the assistant chief said.

Haki Yetu’s Gacheru said though there is improvement, more still has to be done.

Teacher Masha called for more preventive counselling sessions with learners so as to avert the cases.

“We have been having general counselling sessions but if these sessions were also done to individuals, they would be even more effective because sometime people do not like to talk where there are many people,” Masha said.