TINGOLO, Kenya — A wave of outrage has grown in Kenya since word has spread that a 16-year-old girl was gang-raped and thrown into a pit latrine in this western Kenyan town, with the alleged attackers told to cut grass at a police post, and then let go.
Nearly 1.4 million people have signed an online petition put up by the activist group Avaaz calling for prosecution of the young men and an investigation of the police who freed them.
Kenya’s political heavyweights are also speaking up. Supreme Court Chief Justice Willy Mutunga last weekend said he had forwarded the matter to the National Council for Administration of Justice for “immediate action.” Foreign Minister Amina Mohamed said that “as a woman and a mother, I am outraged and angered by this inhumane, traumatizing and inexcusable violation.”
The teenage victim is confined to a wheelchair because of the physical trauma from the attack. She has undergone two surgeries — one for a fistula and another for spinal surgery, said Lydia Muthiani, the deputy executive director of the Coalition on Violence Against Women, a group that has taken up the case.
“She is doing very well. They are hopeful she will walk again,” said Muthiani, who noted that the victim is dealing with the psychological trauma of the rape and from time to time will shut down emotionally.
The attack happened in June but didn’t get wider attention until Nairobi’s Daily Nation newspaper wrote about it last month.
Her mother spoke through tears at her home in Busia County. She said that the police at first said only that her daughter should be taken to a pharmacy and be prescribed painkillers.
Even if her physical and psychological trauma continues to heal, her life will forever be upended. Cultural traditions in this area mandate that a rape victim leave her home and move to another town where, in theory, people will not know that she has been raped.
3,000
Suspected number of rapes in Kenya during the months of violence of the 2007-08 election, according to a study
11
Convictions related to those 3,000 rapes
