Kilifi county recorded about 200 cases of sexual gender based violence in January and February.
According to county statistics, the youngest victim of SGBV is a two-year old baby girl.
Governor Amason Kingi has raised concern over the rising numbers saying, something needs to be done.
Last year, a total of 700 cases were recorded and five resulted to teen pregnancies, according to reports.
Last Friday, Kingi said 80 per cent of SGBV cases are being settled by village elders, hence the victims are denied the justice they deserve.
“It's sad to see that most cases are handled by wazee wa mitaa (village elders)," he said.
"We see people being fined Sh500 or two goats for defiling a minor, what will stop the person from doing it again."
Most of the sexual violence perpetrators are people well-known to the victims.
Kingi said poverty should not be an excuse to defile young girls and called on the law courts to take stun actions against those found guilty.
The county has opened a fully-fledged sexual and gender-based violence recovery centre at the Kilifi hospital, with outreach satellite stations in Malindi, Mtwapa and Bamba.
“Most of these cases are perpetrated by relatives so it's easy to silence or intimidate the victims. That is why we take the girls to the recovery centers and give them shelter until the matter is fully determined,” Kingi said.
Last week, Chief Justice Martha Koome opened the first ever special sexual gender-violence court at Shanzu Law Courts in Mombasa.
Koome reiterated Judiciary’s commitment in ensuring that SGBV cases are dealt with and expedited as required.
She called on the courts to employ the, “no adjournment policy” on the cases.
“As we launch the court we expect that it will showcase best practices towards ensuring expeditious trials. These include stakeholder engagement and collaboration, through the court user committees,” Koome said.
Kingi said the court has given a ray of hope for the hundreds of sexual violence victims.
“We see a ray of hope for the voiceless victims, though the court is domiciled in Mombasa about 99.9 per cent consumers of its services are from Kilifi,” Kingi said.
Before the opening of the court, Kilifi had the lowest SGBV case clearance rate of 44 per cent
Mombasa court has 60 per cent efficiency in case clearance and Kwale is at 65 per cent.
(Edited by Tabnacha O)
