Chief Administrative Secretary of the Ministry of Public Service, Youth and Gender Affairs, Rachel Shebesh is fiercely leading a high powered delegation in Nyalenda slums Kisumu County to fish out a serial rapist. This coming after a series of reported attacks by area residents.
This comes two days after news broke of a gang of young men who have been taking advantage of women in Nyalenda slum, the CAS visited the area accompanied by Kisumu Woman Rep Rosa Buyu and other local administrators.
They came face to face with women who had been assaulted by the gang as they narrated their painful encounters.
Even though police claimed to have arrested more than five individuals in connection to the gang, NTV reported that none of them had been arraigned in court.
A case study is that of 15-year-old girl who narrated to reporters while seated in a corner of her family’s iron-sheet home that she was defiled by a group of men in 2018.
She still remembers that day. It was, in fact, December 26. The gang was not content with raping her, they also inserted an empty soda bottle into her private parts and left her for dead.
“The people who found me called the police. The bottle was removed and I was taken to hospital,” she says in a small voice.
She reveals that the police did not preserve the bottle as evidence, as one would expect. Instead, it ended up exchanging hands among the crowd that had gathered at the scene of the crime, a factor that, a forensic expert would tell you, would complicate the investigation due to the many finger prints introduced to the evidence. This factor alone would be enough to deny the victim justice.
“I don’t fear the Judicial systems or the internal security. As long as they aren’t doing their job of protecting women, we cannot speak the same language,” an angry Shebesh told the local residents.
Kisumu East Deputy commissioner Josephine Ouko issued a stern warning to all the rapists in Nyalenda that they will be flushed out.
“Operation ya kufagia rapists Nyalenda tutaifanya pamoja vile tulifanya wa wezi. Kama unajua wewe uko na fikira za kuwa rapist nakupea onyo, hama! Nyalenda imekuwa kidogo kwako (This operation of flushing out rapists in Nyalenda will be done in conjuction with residents the same way we flushed out theives. I you have even the slightest thoughts about raping, I am warning you to move from this area. Nyalenda has become too small for you).” warned Ouko.