Parental love and protection are a given for many children, but life is upside down for one Baringo girl.
On Friday midday, the seven-year old Grade 2 pupil, wearing a tattered and dirty school uniform left school and entered her filthy wooden house in Baringo North.
“Can someone please help me get out of this place? I want to go to boarding school because my mother always abandons me alone in the house,” she said.
Tears rolled down her face when she narrated her ordeal to the Star during a visit.
She said she has been defiled by unknown men who enter the house at night.
She is forced to stay alone at night as her mother, does menial jobs the whole day until midnight.
The smelly dirt-floor is filthy with human faeces, black soot; it's littered with dirty old utensils, cartons, scattered clothes and bedding.
Empty cooking pots and the cold fireplace indicate there's no serious cooking. The girl says she survives on the school lunch, githeri — a mixture of maize and beans.
“Sometimes children harass me and snatch the food away and I return home hungry,” she said.
She was constantly scratching her skin, indicating she might have a skin ailment.
In the evening, the girl is forced to scavenge from one house to the other, begging for supper. The she braves the dark and returns home at 9 or 10pm to lie down on her grimy, tattered bedding.
“I always leave the door open so my mother can enter when she returns late in the night. I feel scared being left alone and really want to go someplace better," she said.
DEFILED
On several occasions unknown men have sneaked into the house at night, forced her to undress and then defiled her.
“I've told my mother several times but she hasn't helped me," she said.
Of course, she hasn't had a medical check-up.
A neighbourhood elder said they have warned the girl's mother several times and asked her to take good care of her child in vain.
"She always looks ignorant and never listens to people’s advice," he said.
He said neighbours have taken it upon themselves to feed the girl lunch when she is at home and supper in the evening.
They also have reported the girl's situation and neglect to authorities but no action has been taken.
The mother was not at home at the time when the Star visited but this reporter met her on our way back. She confirmed the situation is true, that the girl is left alone for many hours.
She said she is jobless and has to leave early and return home late to fend for her two children, including the one-year old she was carrying on her back.
“It is my prayer also that one day a well-wisher comes to take the girl so I can comfortably struggle to feed and raise the little one,” she said.
A local administrator said the woman had three children and a well-wisher took one to school elsewhere.
He said people have done everything possible to talk to the family but the mother has not changed. "Our worry now is the lives of the innocent children.”
Human rights activist and Elimu Kwanza Initiative chairperson Dorothy Jebet urged the county children’s department to rescue the child.
“Besides the living condition, I feel so touched when the girl says she is being defiled but nothing seems to be done to stop it," Jebet said.
The village is close to where 10-year-old Grade 3 girl, died of a sexual abuse-related illness, after she was defiled by a relative for three years since 2019.
She died of bacterial and viral infections that weren't noticed or treated.
(Edited by Bilha Makokha)
