Child defilement in Kakamega county, Kenya and related factors

In Kakamega County, child defilement is a public health and social problem, affecting many children. The prevalence of child defilement case in the County is significantly high. Research on the phenomenon of child defilement appears to be underdeveloped; but still ongoing. The trigger factors on the child defilement phenomenon seem to be linked on well known social issues. It is against this backdrop that the present study sought to establish the extent to which child defilement is associated with the prevailing socio-cultural and economic factors, substance abuse and family history. A descriptive survey design was employed to purposively pick and randomly select a sampling frame of 86 respondents comprising of 44 Gender Police Officers, 27 Social Workers, 9 Children Officers and 6 Probation Officers. Of the sampled respondents, seventy (70) of them were interviewed using a semi- structured questionnaire. Despite this scarcity of studies, this study empirically allowed the researcher to confirm that poor rural family attributes including socio-cultural factors related to past abuse (parental personal difficulties, past history, poor family structure and functioning as well as the characteristics of the environment that children grew from) could be associated to an increased risk for their child defilement. The study established that child defilement is a significant problem that exposes children to early pregnancies and marriages, HIV/AIDS and psychological trauma. Equally, majority of the defilements were perpetrated by persons known to the victims, namely family members and /or neighbours. Consequently, high levels of poverty, drug and alcohol abuse and ignorance of the illegality of the vices appeared to be key challenges in the fight against child defilement. It was therefore, concluded that child defilement can be fought more effectively by strengthening the existing, counselling, legal, child protection, rescue and gender recovery services.