Drugs and broken families have been touted as the biggest causes of increased cases of child defilement in Lamu county.
Lamu Child Protection Initiative’s Abdulaziz Sadique said at any given time, children are defiled by people they are familiar with at the family level.
He said when conflicts occur at the family level, marriages break and spouses most often part ways leaving the children caught up in the middle of an ugly tug of war.
Most often than not, the mother opts to leave the family without her children either willingly or because the husband won’t allow her.
The children left behind become easy and accessible targets to abusers who are mostly relatives and family friends who the child knows and trusts.
“Sometimes even the child’s father or close relatives are the ones who sexually abuse these children. This kind of abuse is swift because even the child doesn’t expect that such close relatives can do that, considering how they know and trust them,” Sadique said.
He said other times, mothers will take off with the younger children and leave behind those considered mature enough.
“These are the children who become targets for sexual abuse from the spouse who has custody and other close relatives who take advantage of the broken family to ensnare and defile them,”he said.
He noted that its impossible for most children from broken families to thrive and even attain the confidence to report their abusers.
“The child will find it hard to speak about the abuse because they love the perpetrator and have a sort of a bond with them," he added.
He urged families to consider the interests of the child irrespective of the circumstances and strive to have children grow up in environments that are mentally and physically nourishing.
There have been cases where men have defiled their own daughters left in their custody after the mother fled the family.
Touching on alcohol and substance abuse as another contributor to increased child defilement, the child protection official said many abusers commit their offences while under the influence of alcohol.
He noted that many families are struggling with a situation where one or both spouses are alcoholics and drug addicts who rarely pay attention to the needs of their children.
“They will either be responsible for the defilement or be too drunk to even notice that their children are being sexually abused. Either way it is wrong and parents must stay woke."
A 2018 report by World Vision revealed that over 25 girls had been sexually abused and defiled by their biological fathers in Lamu between January and May that year.
The report also highlighted a spike in incest cases, with majority of the girls reporting having been impregnated by their biological fathers.
According to a report by the Director of Public Prosecutions office in Lamu, Hindi division in Lamu West remains the leading area for child defilement cases between 2015-to date.
