From: People For Peace
Colleagues Home & Abroad Regional News

BY FR JOACHIM OMOLO OUKO, AJ
NAIROBI-KENYA
MONDAY, FEBRUARY 13, 2012

Following my recent article on lesbian nuns in convents and how difficult it is to recover from sex abuse, one of the regular regional news readers and a parent responded: “Dear Editor, thank you for your article on Sister Jesme who was abused by her fellow nuns when she was sent to teach plus-two students in St Maria College.

;
What touched me on your article and has forced me to respond to it is how Sister Jesme described the mental torture that novices are subjected to when they are abused. In the book, Sister Jesme refers to the helplessness that nuns face when they are sexually abused in a convent.

“When a woman is molested, sexually harassed, will she speak out? Only one out of a thousand will speak out. So think of nuns! They will never speak out. They fear that their nun-hood will be lost.”

You also mentioned why it is very difficult to recover from the abuse because the psychological impact is horrendous and it affects the victim to the core of their being. It has repercussions throughout their life. Without a real concerted effort of healing, the victims really don’t get over it.

Now I want to tell you a story of my own daughter who was in a boarding school and over a sudden she told us that she did not want boarding school anymore and wanted to go to day school. She did not tell us the reason why she did not want boarding anymore.

Now she is in college but we see her not herself. Could it be that she was molested in school and that is why she was insisting she did not want boarding school anymore? Again could it be if it all she was abused and shy to tell us is the reason why she looks disturbed?”

Probably before I go straight to whether girls or boys are sexually abused in boarding schools allow me to share with you a story of Michael Uka who was abused by a Dutch priest who had worked in Kenya for 18 years.

Uka was only 14 years old when the priest invited him to his room and gave him coffee, after which he took him to his room where he started touching him immediately”. When Uka tried to resist the priest forced him into sex and being young he had no alternative but to give in for it.

When Uka asked him why he was doing that to him since I have never seen this happening before, the priest who later became a bishop responded by telling me that when you meet with father Gerry in his room I am told you do the same thing I am doing on you. Gerry has since been stripped of his priesthood.

The bishop, who is now living at a retirement home in the Netherlands, continued with the abuse. This was the first Dutch bishop to be punished by the Vatican for sexually abusing a minor.

Even though he is no longer permitted to perform the duties of a bishop or a priest, Uka has never recovered from the abuse. He says he feels isolated now that the abuse has gone public.

“Sometimes I regret speaking. I don’t regret the fact that the bishop has been sent away. But it’s very hard because people talk rubbish about me. They ask me why I have spoken out about this.’ Uka also says he’s afraid his children will one day find out about his past. ‘If it weren’t for these problems following me, I would have been a good father,’ Uka said recently during the interview.

What hurt Uka most is when the bishop refused to acknowledge the abuse during a meeting arranged by the members of his congregation in Kenya before the case was sent on to the Vatican.

Uka says the bishop contacted him shortly after the meeting and offered him a cow. In Masai tradition, the victim explains, a cow is sometimes offered as compensation for wrongdoing. But the cow could not change the image of Uka.

Uka said even though the bishop’s superior helped him by offering him counselling and medical treatment and some financial assistance, Uka feesl justice has not been done. “I still have faith. I still pray to God. But not in the church anymore” Uka told the press

The abuse was confirmed by then Superior of that congregation between 2005 and 2008 during the period of investigations. Asked why it took the church in Kenya to act immediately the superior said he also wondered why. This story and others demonstrate how sexual victims suffer silently.

In Kenya and many parts of the world the abused children continue to rise. On August last year the Kenyan Education Ministry Permanent Secretary (PS), James Ole Kiyiapi was reported as saying that cases of homosexuality in Kenyan high schools were on the increase.

The PS spoke in the wake of a report claiming that several girls had been sent home for two weeks from Moi Girls School Kamusinga in late July after having being accused of “lesbianism and devil worship.

The PS’ statement triggers questions about how cases of homosexuality are handled in Kenyan schools and among the youth generally. “Are we nurturing our children by sending them home and vilifying them among their peers and by alienating them at such an impressionable age”?

Such claims of homosexuality are especially rampant in Kenyan boarding schools.

Being suspended from school because of one’s sexual expression is too punitive an action and the school administration should consider taking steps that guide the youth rather than making moves to stifle them.

A major concern that Kenyan parents should seek to tackle head on, is how to deal with our children’s curiosity regarding sex, their identities and their orientation?

Great concern, compassion and attention are necessary at this time when young people are at an impressionable age and want to explore their feelings and their changing bodies.

Pushing this issue under the carpet will not make it go away and parents or guardians and teachers need to find a space to have these conversations and provide correct information on sexuality and sexual health to the youth.

The news reports which indicate that the issue of sexuality exists and the only thing left to do is to embrace this discussion in school can tell a lot how our children are suffering psychologically.

Children are afraid to discuss sexual issues with their parents, even if they are abuse because sex and sexuality have been taboo subjects for so long and are hardly addressed at home and at school.

When they are, it is in a condemning manner that suggests that there is something wrong or shameful with being a sexual being. That explains why there are several cases of the abuse that are not reported.

The case in Mombasa, Kenya which attracted the media on Feb 8 last week where six students at Moi Kadzodzo Girls Secondary School in Kilifi County on Wednesday allegedly admitted to having practised lesbianism at the school after they were grilled by education officers can tell a lot what is happening with our children secretly.

This was revealed as the government dispatched a team of education inspectors to the school to investigate allegation of lesbianism within the learning institution. The probe team led by Kaloleni District Education Officer Julius Nkarichia confirmed that the students who had been sent home to bring their parents to school admitted practising lesbianism.

The school principal Dorcas Kavuku got reports from the general students’ body that these particular girls were not behaving according to the school rules. They practised lavish touching and kissed each other which is not normal for people of the same gender. This is because in Kenya homosexuality, lesbianism and transgender remain widely unacceptable in the society.

This latest case is yet another indication on the dilemma of handling same sex relations.

It presents an opportunity for Kenya to think of how it will handle the situation since it cannot disown the six minors who represent many others in other schools as reported.

Despite reports of increasing numbers of gays in the country, it has remained apparent that Kenya is not about to accept them. Yet it has been discovered that due to the stigma, most gay people have partners but stick to their marriages with the opposite sex to shield themselves from societal discrimination.

That is why when Prime Minister Raila Odinga ordered in 2010 for a crack down of gay people in Kenya and said those found practising it should be arrested, he had to withdraw his statement saying he had nothing against the gay community. The withdrawal indicated that he had realized that gay and lesbians are increasingly making a big number in the country.

The same year when Special Programmes Minister Esther Murugi came into sharp criticism after saying that lesbians and homosexuals should be involved in HIV/Aids programmes, Kenyans were made to believe that the practice does not exist.

It explains why parents cannot talk to their children on this matter because they assume the practice is very far from their children. They only think it involves only few people and their children are not involved.

Apart from homosexuality and lesbianism, cases of incest are also on the rise in some parts of Kenya with Nyandarua North District, with at least five reported cases of fathers, who have defiled their daughters in as many months this year according to the district children’s officer, Mr Mwaniki Kungu who says three cases were reported last year.

Incest is also rife in Nairobi among Kenyan teenagers according to a new study conducted by the National Council for Children’s Service. The study revealed that adolescents admitted having sex with close relatives like uncles and aunts.

Some cases involving fathers and daughters to have sex during the day, especially in slums is happening while the mothers are out there to look how she can get food on the table.

Most of the slums in Nairobi there is no privacy between the parents and their teenage children. When father and mother are sleeping with only curtain to cover the bed room, boys and girls are sleeping on the floor.

The problem begins when they hear their parents making love. The boys will in return have it with their sisters. Or in the case where there is only mother and she has also gone for night to have sex with men who will in return give her money for food and rent. Boys and girls will take the opportunity.

No child is psychologically prepared to cope with repeated sexual stimulation for long, especially among boys-that is why eventually they end up having sex with their own sisters.

The same applies to fathers and daughters. When the mother is not around and he is with his daughter, the consistent stimulation for sexual urge will force him to have sex with the daughter one given time.

As a result most of these children will suffer from more psychological symptoms. That is why they cannot discuss the abuse, especially when it is chronic abuse starting at early ages.

According to the research traumatic stress, including stress caused by sexual abuse, causes notable changes in brain functioning and development and if it is not healed the abused will never recover for the rest of his or her life.

People for Peace in Africa (PPA)
P O Box 14877
Nairobi
00800, Westlands
Kenya

Tel +254-7350-14559/+254-722-623-578
E-mail- ppa@africaonline.co.ke
omolo.ouko@gmail.com
Website: www.peopleforpeaceafrica.org