We’re not going to hell, we already live in it
Sometimes I wonder why we indulge in the mystical belief that there is life after death. Our transgressions here on earth supposedly decide whether we get to go to heaven or as it were, shake hands with the devil before assuming our position in the fire and brimstone of hell.
The truth is, we don’t need to look forward to spending our eternity in hell, we already live in it.
About 3 years ago, a UNICEF funded report that still haunts me today landed on my desk with a post it note suggesting what I can do to highlight what was in the report within my sphere of work. The general subject of the report was not alien by any means, I guess it was the scale of it and the impact that continues to disturb me. The report was about the scale of child abuse and child prostitution in Kenya in general, and around the coastal region in particular.
Fast forward to last night and I’m watching my favourite Channel 4 news and out of the blue, they feature a comprehensive investigative report about the prevalence of child prostitution and child abuse in Mombasa. What was different is that the children involved and highlighted in the report were given names and faces, and they actually came alive to tell their story. Not that they weren’t alive, but hearing the story from them is gut wrenching.
Here is the blog and video of the untold suffering of Kenyan children story by Jonathan Rugman, the Foreign Affairs correspondent of Channel 4.
Leyla, a 14 year old girl being interviewed in the video made tears roll from my eyes. She is clearly a bright, intelligent and articulate girl, and accepts that poverty has dealt her a raw deal and she’s ended up selling her body to survive. There’s one point she says that she reflects and asks God how the hell she ended up where she is and tearfully laments “I’m just a child”.
There’s also the story of a 6 year old girl now in an orphanage and able to better relate to her carers following her ordeal of abuse since the age of 3. It wasn’t only the physical marks of her abuse like the whipping on her back or the vaginal and anal trauma she’s sustained at her tender age of 6 – I submit to you that this girl doesn’t have to wait to live in hell. It’s her life now.
The sentiments of one mother whose 13 year old girl attends church on Sunday morning and from the afternoon is prostituting herself on the beaches of Mombasa to ensure that her family don’t starve to death captures an even more devastating side to this nightmare.
Until the issue of poverty is addressed, it’s hard to see how the “foreign” money from the mzungu – most of who travel for child sex is going to be turned away by those desperate to put food on the table.
It’s estimated that over 20,000 children, most under the age of 15 are involved in child prostitution, but I think it’s fair to say that this is only the tip of a very ugly iceberg. An iceberg that our society, particularly in Kenya, doesn’t want to deal with. For all the publicity the news report yesterday will bring, I’m more concerned with those who suffer in silence and for whatever reason, are not able to speak out.
I have previously worked on issues of social injustice in various forms, and the one that makes it hardest for me to comprehend, is the untold story of our children who are abused daily and don’t have a voice.
I once told a group of colleagues I worked with on a project “show me 5 girls living in a context of social depravation, and I’ll show you a story of physical, emotional and sexual abuse that is likely to be taken by the victim to her grave”.
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September 25th, 2009 at 10:47 am
You can say that again! This is absolute hell for the children involved.
Why is this abuse so rampant yet we have heard it time and time again. I submit to you the Kenyan government will always look the other way so long as they get their earnings from tourist visas and the huge taxes from the hotel industry! Why else are they not acting on it?
I can’t imagine a 6 year old child who has been so traumatised by such things….and to hear it is a daily occurence! It is worse to think that a child has to be sent out to prostitute so that they can have some food. My God they are just kids!
September 25th, 2009 at 1:41 pm
I agree the government should do more. Tourists who visit Kenya should be prosecuted if they violate the laws of Kenya. Period.
But meanwhile can everyone please give birth only to the number of children they can take care of. Now the expression that ‘watoto ni wa mungu’ to promote irresponsible child bearing should never be used. God help anyone who thinks the Kenyan government/Any government actually cares for their children. A safe place to live, food on the table, school fees – all that is a parent’s responsibility extending to beyond the parent’s own life on earth if it were to end prematurely. Now if any of these children had all that they would not be child prostitutes.
And I wonder how much the consultant for UNICEF and the channel 4 reporter earned for their reports?? I wonder.
September 25th, 2009 at 5:35 pm
I understand that when a child molester is imprisoned, his fate at the hands of his fellow inmates is many times worse than usual. How sad it is that convicted felons feel a greater sense of abhorrence for such acts of inhumanity than our political and business leaders.
And how sad that even as we pride ourselves in the economic and technological advances we have made as a nation, hundreds of thousands of Kenyans live such desperate lives that this horrible trade is able to flourish to such a large proportion.
September 26th, 2009 at 2:11 pm
Yikes.
September 27th, 2009 at 8:28 am
We’re Kenyans. We know our government. Enough said.
What I want to know is what I can do. Taking action may save but 1 child but that child’s life will be forever changed.
September 28th, 2009 at 10:24 am
As you said these are just but a few of the cases that have come out in the public eye. Many continue to suffer in what others consider “not worth mentioning”cases. Relatives who continue to prey on their female kin and threaten them to shut up. I was reading a report that stated that a certain significant percentage (I would need to confirm the statistics) of all female children in Africa have suffered one form or another of sexual abuse in their pre-teen or teen ages regardless of their financial background. Sexual predators just out rightly need to be done away with.period! Castration would be more like it!
September 29th, 2009 at 12:15 pm
Mama. There’s absolutely no point in trying to rationalize the motivation of a government whose interests are short term financial gains as opposed to the security and welfare of children. The issue of poverty is not only a factor that forces children into prostitution or other forms of sexual exploitation. Poverty and corruption also has a bearing on the ability of the criminal justice system to bring any perpetrators to book. What motivation do the police have to follow up cases if the opportunity is there for perpetrators to bribe their way out of a difficult situation. I wouldn’t be surprised if there were officers who also take sexual advantage of vulnerable children because their impunity will never be challenged.
@KR, I agree – “Watoto ni wa mungu” has to stop. Family planning is key to this.
@Mystic. Until victims start believing that justice is a reality, then the thousands of young girls who suffer silently will continue. Unfortunately, the sexual exploitation of girls in their teenage and pre-teenage years has become a cotttage industry with the worst of the criminals being known to the victims.
October 2nd, 2009 at 12:19 pm
The poor will be exploited by the rich, and it’s sad that children get involved. No one is willing to enforce strict laws as long the sex pests wave their green dollars….
and yes, let’s not forget family planning. This brings me to the question of whether if someone is poor, they should not have children.
October 10th, 2009 at 5:40 pm
I’m rather an ostrich about things like this. It hurts too much to think about, so I don’t. lame, i know, but the very thought of anyone hurting my baby [or anyone else's baby for that matter] breaks me, and i don’t like being broken…
November 7th, 2009 at 12:57 am
Watoto ni wa Mungu true but I submit that people don’t know the actual cost or what it takes to parent because for most of them their parents were hardly around. Not a defense but a factor. Reminds me of a story my friend was telling me of a mother who had left her son to live on the streets because she couldn’t take care of him. When they were reunited and he needed a release form for an operation she refused aying Mungu analeta na Mungu anachukua. Ignorance reigns and ruins our people. Poverty enables it even more. His sisters are prostituting most of them younger than 15. My friend who is a social worker was being told by the girls inawasha (when they don’t have a man). This by girls who are in class two to eight? We do already live in hell.