The suspect will remain in custody as police prepare to charge him.
NAIROBI, Kenya, Oct 13 – A mother was shocked to learn that her 15-year-old daughter had been put on Anti-Retroviral Treatment (HIV), yet no one bothered to tell her she had been raped in the first place.
The mother came to terms with the harsh reality when she was summoned to a police station on Monday.
She learnt that her daughter who is a Form One student at Highridge Girls Secondary School was allegedly raped five days ago by her teacher.
“She started using the ARVs on Saturday, the whole of Sunday she was taking the medicine and Monday is when I got to know my daughter was raped,” the mother painfully narrated to Capital FM News.
She expressed utter disbelief that the school management had not uttered a single word to her.
The poor girl had been warned by the biology teacher to keep her mouth shut, and the school administration also cautioned her against informing her parents.
“When they (school administration) were recording a statement on Monday that is when the police called me. Only to arrive there to be told my daughter had been taken to hospital and that she had been defiled. She was even taking ARVs,” the mother narrated as she paused to hold back her tears.
“I am very pissed off. At least they would have told me. Even if the teacher or my daughter was on the wrong, they should have informed me.”
When Capital FM News caught up with the mother, she had accompanied her daughter and the suspect to Nairobi Women’s Hospital to have their samples taken for tests to ascertain the rape allegations.
The girl dressed in full school uniform and a hijab covering her head sat outside the laboratory, quietly but quite withdrawn.
She said little to her mother.
The mother was standing outside the laboratory as two police officers guarded the 26-year-old biology teacher.
Later the suspect was driven to the government chemist where blood samples to test for HIV were taken from the suspect and the student.
The suspect did his best to cover his face with a bottle of water squeezed between his handcuffed hands.
The mother is worried that though the ARV treatment had been administered, it was done way after 72 hours.
“She was raped on Wednesday at around 9pm. She was taken to hospital on Saturday morning. Before that she was only on painkillers,” her mother complained.
She blamed the school for trying to shield the teacher because, the entire school management was aware of the incident yet they never informed her.
According to police records, the biology teacher was on duty during that week.
“He went to the form one class and asked the girl to go to the staff room to wait for him.
But on her way, he followed her.
He grabbed her with one hand as the other one covered her mouth.
He pulled her to a toilet near the staffroom and then defiled her.
Later she went back to class crying and that’s how her classmates learnt about it.
The matter was reported to the matron who informed the school principal a day after the incident.
“How can the principal try to cover the story, he should have at least tried to help my daughter,” she complained.
Even after reporting, there was no action taken apart from the student being given pain killers ‘as she was in a lot of pain.’
But on realising the pain wasn’t reducing, ‘that’s when she was taken to hospital on Saturday’.
Confirming the incident, Gigiri Police Chief Vitalis Otieno told Capital FM News that it was wrong that the school administration did not report the matter immediately they got to know about it.
He however, said despite the late reporting; “the medical reports will be important evidence that will be used in court against the suspect.”
According to the girl’s mother, the school administration was reluctant to report the matter.
She appreciated that it was the vigilance of her daughter’s schoolmates that forced the school to report the incident to police.
“Anybody who knew that she was called from the class was told to keep quiet. Instead the students had to riot and make a lot of noise because they wanted to beat the teacher. At that time the teacher was being hidden, that’s when the principal started taking the teacher out and the police came to find out what the noise was about,” the mother stated.
The suspect will remain in custody as police prepare to charge him.
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