A dirt road leads to a homestead with three mud-walled houses and an old rickety wooden granary in Kiptele village, Bureti constituency, Kericho County.
A flock of chickens is foraging in an open garden with leafy green banana trees and vegetables in various stages of maturity.
Sitting on a stool near a round grass-thatched house that serves as the family kitchen is a young girl with a child strapped on her back as she removes beans from their pods in preparation for supper.
Her body frame and age could easily mislead first-time visitors that she is either a domestic worker or a child holding her sibling.
But the two-year-old baby boy in her arms is hers. The mother is a 16-year-old Standard Eight dropout.
The toddler is the product of a defilement that happened two years ago and has not been resolved.
Even though the matter was reported at the Litein Police Station two years ago – under Occurrence Book (OB) number 33/26/11/2019 – and taken up by the DCI, no action has been taken against the culprit by the police.
The defilement is said to have happened in Siongi village in the region, and the matter is public knowledge.
But the suspect has gone scot-free for unexplained reasons, while the victim and the child are on their own.
Abandon her education
After nine months of pregnancy, she was taken to Kapkatet Sub-County Hospital, where she gave birth without complications to a baby boy on July 7, 2019, according to family members, who showed us the maternity admission and discharge documents.
“We did not have clothes for the newborn baby when the mother was discharged, and we only wrapped it in a shawl and came home,” said the child’s grandmother in an interview with Nation.Africa at the homestead on Thursday afternoon.
The family spent Sh5,000 at the hospital as they did not have a National Hospital Insurance Fund (NHIF) medical cover. Some Sh3,000 was borrowed from a relative and Sh2,000 was from the savings of the child’s grandmother, who works menial jobs in the neighbourhood.
It marked the start of a series of problems the young mother has faced in the course of bringing up the child singlehandedly.
“I have gone through a lot in silence, and been forced to bring up the child singlehandedly when I was not ready for parenthood,” she said in an interview interspersed with long awkward moments of silence as she relived her tortuous journey as a young mother.
As a result of the pregnancy and delivery, the young mother had to abandon her education, having sat her Kenya Certificate of Primary Education (KCPE) examination at a local primary school.
She had been enrolled at a day secondary school for one term before the Covid-19 outbreak led to the closure of learning institutions.
The teenager, who aspired to be a teacher, has changed her dreams and now focuses on taking a technical course or training as a hairdresser if she gets a sponsor to pay for it.
Defilement suspect
“I’m no longer interested in going back to high school, for many reasons that I may not share with you,” she told Nation.Africa.
“But any other form of training that will see me get employed within a short period so that I can earn money to feed and educate my child is an idea I have been toying with, though I do not have money for it,” she stated.
The defilement suspect, a Moi University graduate, is alleged to be an employee of a financial institution and is said to be known to the family and friends of the victim.
Documents seen by Nation.Africa show that the young mother was born on July 30, 2005, making her 14 years old at the time the attack occurred. She turned 16 years old this year.
During the interview, the toddler did not leave the mother’s arms as he repeatedly cried out demanding to be breastfed – a bargain that he got and in turn paid back with silence.
All the while the child looked at us with suspicion and clung to his mother’s chest as if protecting her from potential harm from the strangers in the room.
The young mother now works as a tea picker in the neighbourhood to fend for her child. Her mother, the boy’s grandmother, has six other children to take care of singlehandedly.
It is claimed that the suspect took advantage of the girl and stole her innocence due to the family’s poverty and other challenges facing them after the girl’s parents separated about three years earlier.
Demand for justice
“I earn an average of Sh100 a day as a casual labourer, which is hardly enough to feed, clothe and buy medication for my child,” the teenager said.
It is alleged that a relative of the suspect gave the victim Sh1,000 a few months after she delivered and requested that the matter be kept private.
A relative of the girl said that all that the family required was justice to be administered.
“We are urging the relevant government departments to act on the matter and ensure that the suspect is dealt with for defiling a young girl, making her pregnant and failing to take responsibility for the upkeep,” the relative said at the homestead.
Mr Elisha Kirui, a former chief, was instrumental in getting the case reported at the local police station while he was still in service.
“The matter was reported at the station and a statement taken from the girl by police officers. By the time I retired, no action had been taken and I have confirmed today that, indeed, the file has been lying at the station,” he said.
The former chief is said to have been summoned to the station by a senior officer at the Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI) for an information update after the officer got a whiff on Thursday that the media was following up on the matter.
“I have not interacted with the file since I reported to the station early in the year. But now that we have the OB number, we will follow it up immediately and find out why the suspect was not arrested to answer for the alleged crime,” said Bureti Sub-County Police Commander Peter Isanda.
The poverty-stricken family is unable to pursue the matter further than the report they recorded at the police station, even as they hope against hope that justice will be served one day soon. BY DAILY NATION