• The deceased was reportedly found dangling from a tree after the incident
Image: FILE
A Facebook post claiming that a 14-year old girl at Kabiangek Primary School in Bomet County committed suicide after her teacher mocked her for soiling her uniform with her period is TRUE.
The post contains a screenshot of a video by NTV Kenya, which states that the girl took her own life after being ridiculed by a teacher in the presence of other pupils for staining her uniform with her period.
The video identifies the school as Kabiangek Primary School in Konoin, Bomet County, and names the girl as Jackline Chepng’eno.
According to the video, Jackline was reportedly mocked by a female teacher at her school for soiling her uniform, following which she went home at 10am and reportedly committed suicide later in the afternoon of the same day.
Jackline’s mother asked her to go fetch water, clean herself, and then go back to school, and that was when the girl reportedly killed herself by hanging from a tree near her family’s tea farm.
According to Konoin Sub County Police Commander Alex Shikondi, the deceased who was identified as Chepngeno soiled her uniform with her period while in class. Shikondi, who spoke to PesaCheck, added that the deceased was later found dangling from a tree, where she had gone to fetch water from a nearby river.
Shikondi confirmed that the deceased’s mother recorded a statement regarding the death of her child, and that investigations regarding the case are ongoing.
On June 21, 2017, the President signed the Basic Education Amendment Act into law, making the government responsible for providing free, sufficient and quality sanitary towels to every girl child registered and enrolled in a public basic education institution and has reached puberty, as well as providing a safe and environmentally sound mechanism for disposal of these sanitary towels.
PesaCheck has looked into the claim that a 14-year old girl in Bomet committed suicide after mocked by her teacher for soiling her uniform with her menstruation period and finds it to be TRUE.
This post is part of an ongoing series of PesaCheck fact-checks examining content marked as potential misinformation on Facebook and other social media platforms.
By partnering with Facebook and similar social media platforms, third-party fact-checking organisations like PesaCheck are helping to sort fact from fiction. We do this by giving the public deeper insight and context to posts they see in their social media feeds.
Have you spotted what you think is fake news or false information on Facebook? Here’s how you can report. And, here’s more information on PesaCheck’s methodology for fact-checking questionable content.
This fact-check was written by PesaCheck Researcher James Okong’o, was edited by PesaCheck Deputy Editor Ann Ngengere and was approved for publication by PesaCheck Managing Editor Eric Mugendi.