Police in Yatta Sub-County of Machakos are looking for a 50 year-old man who defiled his seven year old daughter at Mamba B village on Thursday, before disappearing into thin air after learning that police were on his trail.
Confirming the incident, the Mamba location Chief, Cosmas Mutunga Kaloki said they had already arrested the mother of the girl for conspiring with her husband to cover up the incident.
Kaloki said soon after receiving report of the incident, he mobilized his team and together they rushed to the scene only to find the suspect having taken off.
“We arrested the victim’s mother and right now she is in custody at the Mamba police Post while the young girl was taken to Matuu Level 4 for medication,” said the chief, adding that once arrested, the suspect will appear in court.
The incident comes barely a week after a Machakos-based civil servant was arraigned in Kithimani Law courts facing charges of defiling a 17 year old girl in Makila village in the neighbouring Syokisinga location of the same Sub-County.
John Kinyenze Kasivu, 58, who works at the Accounts section of the Machakos County Commissioner’s office, was alleged to have defiled the minor on the July 26, 2019.
However, he denied the charges before Kithimani Senior Resident Magistrate (RM), Gilbert Sikwe and was released on a cash bail of Sh.30,000 or a bond of Sh.100,000 with one surety of similar amount.
His case will be heard again on the August 15, 2019 at the same court. The incident brings to the fore rampant case of defilement in the County.
The alarm was first raised by the Machakos County Director of Children’s Services (CDCS), Salome Muthama in November last year when she regretted that under age pregnancies in the county had reached alarming levels.
Speaking to KNA at the time, Muthama blamed the vice to a conspiracy of silence between some relatives of the victims and the perpetrators of the crime to defeat justice for the victims.
“Some parents and relatives of defilement victims opt out of criminal legal procedures for kangaroo courts where compensation is made to settle the crime,” she had said.
And speaking at Kisukioni in Matungulu during this year’s Madaraka Day celebrations, the County Women Representative, Joyce Kamene Kasimbi similarly decried the rise in defilement and incest cases, which she attributed to kangaroo courts which so casually arbitrates over the matter.
“Many sexual offences cases are being withdrawn from the courts due to rampant out-of-court settlements, a move believed to be denying the affected children justice after their parents are compromised with money or material things,” she noted.
Five months ago, a Kangundo woman, Eunice Mumbua was charged before a local court with allowing her drinking partners to repeatedly defile her seven year-old daughter.
Two months earlier, in March 2019, David Katuku, 23, a cook in a Catholic church-run institution, the Martyrs of Uganda in Kalama Sub-County was also paraded before the Machakos Law courts to answer charges of repeatedly sodomizing five minors in the school.
In December 2018, David Ngumbau a 49 year old teacher also appeared in Milimani law courts facing charges of defiling a class four girl in the region.
And just three months earlier, it was the turn of a KDF soldier, to face justice over the defilement of 16 year old pupil in Wamunyu in Machakos County.
By Justus Keesi
