A Kisumu minor has reported a  3-year old defilement by her father and threatens to take her life, a private investigative journalist in Kisumu has told Kenya Today.
“My dad has been having sex with me for 3 years.. sometimes when he comes back for lunch and finds me in the house alone…sometimes he even comes into the bathroom when am bathing with a towel wrapped and does it while I bathe,most of the time when my mum has gone to uganda to buy things for her shop he insists I sleep in his bed for three days.”
These are the words that stunned the Children’s officer manning the children’s desk in Kisumu when a young girl walked in to report defilement. The 16 year old girl from Kisumu city has spent 5 nights in a children’s rescue centre after she ran away from home due to physical and sexual abuse by her 52 year old father. The minor, a primary school pupil from one of the city schools, made the heart-wrenching revelations last Friday.
When given the chance to report her case, trembling, she said, ”my dad has been sleeping with me for the last 3 years and has been threatening to beat me up if I told anybody. He has also been threatening to take me away from school and stop paying my fee”.
The girl ran away from home for one week and took refuge at the children’s rescue centre.
The minor who attends one of the city’s private schools also wrote in her statement how her father wanted him to implicate a local journalist who has been following the story.
The story came to the fore when the journalist who had been following the story became a wanted man after the molesting father reported him to the police that he had raped the minor. The journalist is now a wanted man and lives in hiding.
”He has been bragging that he has the whole Kisumu police force in his pocket and I will see fire…they came to my house on Friday and broke my door saying I had hidden the girl in my house,” the journalist told Kenya Today.Â
”How can I hide her in my house while my wife is in?” posed the journalist who now fears for his life. The police have since visited the journalist’s rural home and harassed his old parents, wanting to know the whereabouts of the journalist.
Back to the minor ,after reporting her case her statement being taken and the children’s department being called in,the parents were called to hear the allegations,the father pleaded with his daughter to come home with them but the minor again stunned everybody present when she said, “I’d rather die than go back to that house!”
The mother who is in her 30s and runs a boutique in the city has been mum about the whole incident. Rumours in the middle class estate where they reside is that the old man has been seen in very compromising situations in his car with his daughter and this is just trickling in after the whole story came out.
While the girl is undergoing counselling, and the children’s department is doing their  investigations, the questions that everybody is asking: Did the mother know about the abuse and turn a blind eye? Is it possible for your husband to sleep with your daughter for 3 years while you sleep under the same roof without you detecting? Could there be such cases prevalent in the region and in the whole country? Why is the police abetting such outrageous crimes?