Police in Trans Mara East in Narok County have arrested a primary school teacher who last year went missing after reportedly defiling a 14-year-old girl.
Local Police Chief Mr. Joel Syuki said 31 year old David Yegon, who was a teacher at Kiribwet Primary School in Trans Mara East reportedly lured his niece into his house before defiling her.
He said the teacher later went into hiding last year when schools closed to evade arrest on learning that he was being sought by the police over the incident.
“It is was until last Wednesday that the renegade teacher showed up to report back for duty when the police were tipped and finally made the arrest” Syuki told KNA.
He said the suspect may soon be arraigned in court to answer to charges preferred against him when investigations were concluded.
Last November, the Teachers` Service Commission (TSC) Chief Executive Officer Ms. Nancy Macharia announced that at least 32 teachers were interdicted and later blacklisted for engaging in sexual relationships with their students.
Defilement and early pregnancies are rampant in Narok due to inherent social cultural practices where a young girl is circumcised and married off early. Narok county commissioner George Natembeya has declared war on this vice and ordered that girls reporting back to school after the long holiday this term be checked if they have undergone the cut popularly known as Female Genital Mutilation (FGM)
About 40 per cent of girls in Narok drop out of school each year which due to early pregnancies and early marriages.
Just this week, a 30-year-old man was sentenced to serve 20 years in jail by a Narok Court after he was found guilty of defiling 12-year-old girl.
This came after a 50-year-old man was sentenced to life imprisonment by the same Court after he was found guilty of defiling his nine-year-old step-daughter earlier in the week.
In 2006, Parliament passed the Sexual Offences Act which offers stricter offenses to sexual offenders but this does not seem to have done much to reduce this offense.
A police crime report shows that over 6,000 cases of defilement were reported and filed in court across the country in 2014.
A 2010 national survey-Prevalence of Sexual, Physical and Emotional Violence -indicated that nearly one in three Kenyan girls under the age of 18 experiences sexual violence.
Perpetrators of the heinous act are parents, relatives, neighbours, guardians and professionals such as teachers and even older siblings.
By Mabel Keya –Shikuku.
