Some 2.8 million calls made to the toll free child abuse helpline were either pranks or silent calls, a new report shows.
Only 33,929 of the calls were of genuine child abuse cases according to the
Status of Child Abuse report released on Tuesday by Childline Kenya.
More than six million calls have been made to the toll free number in the last 10 years. Of these, more than 3.1 million were dropped.
"This number shows the need to intervene in matters of child abuse. It is however sad that two million of those calls were silent and prank calls," the report noted.
Common forms of abuse reported on the toll free line were were child neglect (13,878), sexual abuse (7,317), physical abuse (7,317) and child labour (3,123).
"Child neglect is the basis of child protection so if parents and guardians don't look after their children, the other forms of abuse also go up," the report added.
In 2006, Childline Kenya and its partners launched an 11-digit toll free line to enable Kenyans report cases of child abuse.
Later, a three-digit number, 116, was allocated to facilitate the calls. The number has a capacity of receiving 68 calls at a go.
Those receiving the calls number 11 in all shifts by the helpline service.
"We are working on a way of ensuring we decentralise the number at county level so that more people who are not aware of our services, especially those in rural areas, can call in." Rita Munyae from Childline Kenya added.
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