JUSTICE FOR THE BOY CHILD

Nathan* was a sweet six-year old boy who walked into our acute gynaecology consulting room at the national hospital four years ago. He was escorted by a distraught mother who couldn’t seem to hold back her tears. Her eyes were red and she was a bitter woman.

That morning, while bathing her son, Teresa* noticed his underwear was soiled with stool. She couldn’t figure out why at his age, a well toilet-trained boy was soiling himself yet he was not sick. She couldn’t get an explanation from Nathan as to why he was soiling himself and this upset her. She had not bathed Nathan in a while hence had no idea when this began. She inquired from her nanny who reported that this had been happening on and off for the past few months and no amount of cautioning was yielding fruit.

Teresa noticed that her son appeared frightened and she sat down with him to find out what was wrong. After an hour of pleading with him, she eventually resorted to threats before the boy said that he was unable to hold his stool sometimes. This is when he would have accidents. He further reported in his childhood understanding that his anal opening was big because Uncle Stephen* put his ‘thing’ there, but he did not tell his mother about it because Stephen had threatened to kill him and his mom if he talked.

Teresa went berserk and it took the neighbours to restrain her from hacking Stephen with a machete while he got away. He was currently in police custody while Nathan was brought to the hospital. It was heartbreaking to listen to the little child narrate how he was repeatedly sodomised by his 19-year old uncle over a 13-month period. Stephen was a step brother to Nathan’s father, who had come to stay with the family upon completion of his high school education. He attended the nearby college part-time, studying accounting as he waited to join university.

Both Teresa and her husband were business people who were hardly ever at home while the nanny was an elderly lady who rarely entered the detached servants’ quarters where Stephen slept. This set up facilitated the cruel acts that meted out on the poor child without the knowledge of the responsible adults in the house. Stephen had perfected the art of psychological exploitation of the minor. He showered him with little gifts and candy and instilled fear in the poor boy by threatening him and his mom.

Defilement is one of the most difficult societal ills to deal with. The number of reported cases of defilement has been steadily on the rise in the past few years, tripling in number over five years from 2005 to 2010 to over 3000. This is despite the enactment of the Sexual Offences Act of 2006, popularly known as the Njoki Ndung’u bill. These figured however, are still estimated to be well below the actual number of heinous acts happening out there that go unreported.

The situation is far worse when the minor involved is a boy. We have heard of stories where young teenagers are defiled by older colleagues as part of initiation rituals into secondary school. Yet the secrecy around such a beastly act only serves to protect the perpetrator, leaving the victim exposed, vulnerable and unable to seek justice. In some communities, it is taboo to talk about sodomy to the extent that justice is denied to appease the society.

We are quick to condemn these acts when they happen to the girl child and everyone will be rightfully baying for blood. But for the boy child, we are more subdued, talking in hushed tones and contributing to the loud silence that breeds impunity. A child who has been a victim of defilement is already stigmatized irrespective of gender. Being unable to deal with sodomy as a country leaves us even more ill-equipped to handle it when it happens to our children.

Our attitudes needs an urgent make-over. We need to face this demon head on and protect our vulnerable boys. They are not safe. The perpetrators don’t come wearing a badge on their foreheads. They are the common men of all ages existing functionally within our societies and interacting with us on a daily basis. They get away with the crime because we have not created safe spaces for our boy child to speak up.

As parents and guardians, we must start early. Teach your children, both male and female, to understand the sanctity of their bodies, the concept of personal space and how to loudly communicate when they feel they are being violated, irrespective of the person doing it. Let children understand the importance of reporting threats made to them or the people they love and take them seriously whenever they do so. This builds the critical trust needed when they become victims so that they can speak up.

Our police service and legal systems need to be strengthened and supported to effectively deal with these assault cases. It is abominable for the legal system to take five years to bring a perpetrator to book when he continues to exist in the same environment as his young victim. Our investigative mechanisms must step up. Collection and processing of forensic evidence should not be the preserve of television crime dramas but an integral part of our investigations as it is a sure way of proving cases.

That said and done, the child victims need professional care to deal with the trauma they have been through. The family needs support to be able to deal with the issues because they all get affected indirectly. The community must do better than to gawk at the victim and gossip about him in hushed tones. It is humiliating and demeaning and a complete detractor to the healing process. If you cannot be helpful, get out of the way and let those who are doing something get on with it!