Actors Call For Implementation of Laws Against Child Sex Abuse

Stakeholders who have been on the frontline fighting child sexual abuse have called upon the government and all actors to see to it that all the relevant laws are implemented to the letter in a bid to safeguard children.

This comes in the wake of emerging trends in the form of online sexual abuse, and in a majority of scenarios, the victim is always embarrassed instead of the perpetrators.

In a candid interview with Kanga Rasi, the Africa Campaign Manager for Brave Movement, here’s what she had to say:

“Kenya has rich laws but what had been lacking is the implementation of those very noble pieces of legislation. Of all the victims of sexual abuse, which in most cases comprise children, most cases of reported sexual violence don’t get to see the light of day of access to justice.

In some instances, we’ve documented cases where the victims face more trauma when they go to report and fall prey to the same authorities who are supposed to safeguard them. It’s like a case of falling from the frying pan to the fire. We need to acknowledge that the survivors of sexual violence need someone of a similar gender whom they can feel comfortable sharing with their ordeal.”

The Campaign Manager acknowledged the setting up of the SGBV courts in the country as it will go a long way in ensuring cases of SGBV are hurried as this cases drag in court for long.

Survivors of sexual violence have had to wait even more than five years to receive justice and this brings about re triggering as each time the survivor has to go to court they have to relieve the incident and it even becomes worse with the lack of psychosocial support.

We lack enough shelter homes . Their is a provision to have each county have a shelter homes. However this is still not enough because survivors are not homogeneous so you can’t loop all survivors in one shelter homes so we need several. In addition it’s important that the shelter homes are equipped with adequate resources to take care of the survivors. Survivors who are children have the necessary need to go to school and continue with their life so it’s important that this aspect is well taken care of even at shelter homes with partnership between schools or provision of teachers who can provide training services at the shelter home