'My son fears men,' Two-year-old boy living with the scars of defilement
Jane* and her son who was sodomised by an unknown man in Bahati.
As we step into Ms. Jane's (not her real name) compound, we meet her and her son who desperately clings to her leg. The moment he notices a stranger, fear fills his small face.
His grip tightens around his mother, and he shrinks back, his eyes wide with unease.
The presence of unfamiliar people sends him into a panic, and before anyone can approach, he starts wailing uncontrollably. Only the safety of his mother’s embrace can calm him.
As the mother explains, he was not always like this. It all started on February 21.
As a food vendor at Kwa Amos, in Bahati Sub County Jane says she left her two children (twins) in the care of her friend as she excused herself to go to the bathroom.
During that time, the two, who are two years and seven months old, were being fed and then joined their friends to play.
“After a while, I heard a commotion outside, so out of curiosity, I went to see what was going on. There was a group of women screaming. I went closer and saw them holding my son. They told me to check on him,” she recalls.
Jane narrates how she was confused at first. When they got to the house, she noticed that her son was bleeding from the rear, and it dawned on her that he had been defiled.
“One minute my children were playing with their friends, and the next minute my son is in pain, bleeding, and crying uncontrollably. I checked my daughter, and she was alright. The woman who helped him said that while passing by, she saw a man flee, but she never got a good look at him,” she says.
The scene of the crime was an abandoned building, covered with a thicket, 100 meters from their house.
A resident pointing at the thicket where the boy was found in Bahati.
The single mother says she immediately went to report the matter to the Kabatini Police Station and then proceeded to the Bahati Sub-County Hospital.
“He was referred to the Nakuru County Teaching and Referral Hospital, where he underwent reconstructive surgery. My son’s life has never been the same again,” she laments.
She also narrates how the situation has left her son traumatized, and, on her part, she no longer lets her two children out of her sight.
“My son fears men. If he sees any man coming close to him, he immediately starts crying. On my part, I never let him out of my sight. Honestly, I do not feel safe at all,” she says.
“I sometimes wonder whether it might have been one of the customers I served who did this to my son and whether they might come back and hurt me and my daughter as well.”
This fear has led Jane to shut down her business, in fear that the perpetrator might return.
“I was forced to close down my food vending business because I was afraid. Also, being their only breadwinner, this has been very hard for me, and I have had to depend on well-wishers who help me from time to time,” she says.
“Nataka haki ya mtoto wangu itendeke,” she says with teary eyes.
According to Nakuru North Sub-County Directorate of Criminal Investigations Officer Ms. Josephine Wambui, the matter is under investigation.