Nyakach residents up in arms over rising cases of sexual assault

Residents of lower Nyakach have decried the rampant cases of seemingly coordinated sexual attacks, targeting widows and women-led households.

According to Kisumu Medical Trust (KMET) 11 cases of defilement/rape have been recorded in the past month, with the perpetrators seemingly carrying out the attack in near-rehearsed fashion.

According to Victone Ochieng’ who documents the cases in the area, the sex offenders usually break in between 2 and 4 am with a bright torch and a knife, gives the victims detailed accounts of their (the victim’s) movement, rapes them, issues a threat before walking away with their mobile phones to hamper communication.

Case in point is where three sisters aged 14,16 and 17 were repeatedly defiled in their grandmother’s house, by one man who held the girls hostage using a knife for hours on end in February.

According to Agoro West chief Elizabeth Atieno, despite efforts to rally the survivors to report such cases, the dispensation of justice has been slow as no arrests are made.

Patricia Nudi, advocacy and policy lead at KMET has called on the collaboration of players within the SGBV sphere to invest in capacity building, especially to the police, to assist them in evidence collection so that they build a watertight case to ensure justice for the survivors.

Nudi further pointed the need to have a gender desk at police stations across Nyakach to ease assistance for victims of sexual gender based violence

Of the documented cases, the youngest is a 4 year old girl while the eldest is a 27 year old widow who was repeatedly defiled at knife point alongside her 14 year old sister in Mid March this year