Medical officials from Mumias East Sub County in Kakamega County have raised concern over rising incidents of defilement cases.
Speaking during release of a Community Score Card at Shianda Health Center in Mumias East, the clinical officer in charge who also serves as the Sub-County Anti-Gender Based and Sexual Based violence advocate Simwa Tatuli complained that there is rampant rise of defilement and rape cases in the area.
The Community Score Card is funded by ACT CHANGE TRANSFORM (ACT) through support from United Kingdom Agency for International Development (UKAID) with five partners and uses Shianda Health Centre as a model.
Simwa lamented that sexually transmitted diseases and HIV were also becoming a major problem as a result.
He also said that Shianda health centre dispenses more condoms than any other health facility in the sub- County.
“Shianda is one of the dispensaries that dispense more condoms in the whole Sub-County,” he said.
In addition, he said that they have a youth friendly centre with a specialist in sexually Transmitted Infections to help counsel and offer health education to the youth.
He urged the youth to abstain from early sexual relations curb spread of Sexually Transmitted Diseases (STI’s).
Speaking at the same function, Ematetie Community Health Chairperson Mr. Khaimba revealed to KNA that rape cases were mostly common in young girls and mostly committed by boda boda riders.
Khaimba also urged the community to emulate the Father to Father group’s footsteps to teach the males on how to treat young girls to help curb defilement and rape cases.
Father to Father Group in Ematetie Community is a group funded by an NGO where educated males educate their fellow males on how to treat their spouses, like escorting their expectant women to clinics.
Simwa also said there is emotional, financial and spiritual violence amongst partners. “This is classified under intimate partner violence,” he added.
He urged men to find better ways of solving domestic differences other than beating their wives.
“They should also come out clearly to seek assistance on how to release their stress so as to avoid dying slowly thus leading to mental health and men committing suicide,” he added.
He also noted that they have a problem with chauvinism as some cultures do not allow men to speak of what their women did to them thus they continued dying slowly.
However, Simwa regretted that some victims use the defilement cases as an income generating activity.
He said that after receiving the PRC Forms, the victims resolve to settle their differences at home without legal procedures where they ended up collecting money from the accused and thus the case dies.
He added that the victims use the PRC Forms to threaten the accused to pay them or else they get arrested. This makes the accused sell pieces of land to settle the defiled to avoid arrest.
“They threaten the perpetrators to pay them off by making them sell their pieces of land for the purpose of being let free,” he added.
He warned those who use PRC forms as a source of income to stop since when caught, they could be charged more than the culprits.
