Lead image for Bomet's silent epidemic: How sexual violence crisis hides behind culture, cash and complicity.
In Bomet, a defilement case does not always end in court. More often, it ends in a quiet room, where an elder, chief or relative negotiates a settlement. A sum of money changes hands and the matter is declared closed. The survivor is left to carry the trauma alone.
This is the picture that has emerged from the county in recent months and it has alarmed stakeholders enough to demand stern action against perpetrators who remain free. At the heart of the problem is a practice that has become a disturbing routine: parents and guardians entering into illegal out-of-court settlements to shield suspects, propped up by cultural norms that have long treated such violations as private family matters rather than crimes.
In the last six months alone, Bomet has recorded 40 reported cases of sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV), 26 of which involved direct murder threats against survivors. Statistics from the Judiciary, the police and both national and county administrations paint a grim picture, one in which the institutions meant to protect victims have often turned their backs on them instead.
Read: Survivor and rights defenders welcome Maslaha ban as Kenya moves to prosecute all GBV cases in court
Defilement, rape, sodomy and domestic violence, some of it fatal, remain the leading forms of abuse against women and children in Bomet. Gender-based violence prevalence stands at 44.4 per cent in a region where deep-rooted cultural practices have historically failed to treat such acts as serious crimes against women and girls.
Assault cases account for 44.4 per cent of reported incidents, defilement for 34.9 per cent, and murder for 11.1 per cent, according to statistics presented before Chief Justice Martha Koome when she launched the Alternative Justice System (AJS) Action Plan in Bomet on August 3. Even these numbers, stakeholders say, understate the true scale of the crisis, given the hundreds of cases that go unreported or are settled illegally behind closed doors, to the victims' disadvantage.
Police officers, chiefs, parents and guardians have all been named as either enabling the crime or perpetrating it outright in a society still bound by practices such as female genital mutilation and the confinement of women and girls to household chores.
Confronted with the latest statistics, and with growing evidence of kangaroo courts operating in the villages, Chief Justice Koome issued a firm warning against the misuse of the Alternative Justice System to settle criminal matters.