Report: eight years on, Kenya's rape victims still suffer

The Human Rights Watch has accused the Kenyan government for taking no action on sexual crimes perpetrated during the post-election violence of 2007.

Human Rights Watch said some 900 women and girls were victims of sexual violence during the post-election period and many cases likely were unreported. But to date, no action have been taken.

“Survivors of post-election violence in Kenya have been forgotten and excluded. next year Kenya heads to the polls again while women who were brutally raped almost a decade ago have neither been compensated nor seen justice. The Kenyan government has not only failed to provide the much needed medical and psycho-social support to victims, it has essentially excluded them from ongoing assistance for other post-election violence victims,” said Agnes Odhiambo from Human Rights Watch.

The NGO claimed that they have evidence to show that hundreds of women and girls raped during the violence following Kenya’s 2007 election are suffering from acute physical and psychological trauma. They released a report documenting the ongoing health problems for the victims, many of whom are still in poverty and face social exclusion.

“What we found is that most of the rapes were actually gang rapes, in most of the cases women were raped by more than four perpetrators, in a few cases women were raped by more than four men; what was really shocking as well is that most of these rapes were really brutal. They included a lot of physical violence, women’s legs being pulled apart or being tied apart, a lot of kicking, cutting with machetes, hitting with hard objects, throwing women on hard surfaces and as you can appreciate these has definitely added to the physical injuries that women continue to suffer,” said Agnes Odhiambo.

The report also link police officer as perpetrators of these rapes as 66 cases were reported against them.

“We are aware that numerous survivors including in the report that is being launched here today were raped by state security agents, in fact in 2008, the police established a task force that was to look in to these cases and indicated that they had received 66 complaints of police officers who had been involved in rape and other forms of sexual violence against innocent Kenyans,” said Christine Alai, Human Rights physician.

The government of Kenya has acknowledged rape occurance but no action has yet been taken. The Human Rights Watch is urging the Kenyan government to take steep measures to bring the perpetrators to justice. It has also pushed the government to use its fund of about $9.8 million announced last year March to help survivors of rape who urgently need medical attention and Psycho-therapy services.