Violence in Kenyan Schools

The chaos caused by the “Armenian” brothers over the last few days has distracted many Kenyans, including myself, from another important story.

Students and teachers of a Nairobi secondary school were in shock on Thursday as details emerged that a group of students had badly injured a Form Two student in a brutal sexual attack. The teenage boy, a student at Upper Hill Secondary School, was admitted to Nairobi Women’s Hospital after he was brutally sodomised by five fellow students on a Saturday two weeks ago. On Thursday, the 17-year-old student was in pain and trauma and could not eat or walk after the beastly ordeal. He talked with difficulty.

When I read a story like this my first thoughts go to the boy who was raped. Here is a young man who will carry emotional and mental scars long after his body heals. I hope he gets all the support he needs and he finds peace within himself at some point.

Each time I read this story I get angrier and angrier at the school for their gross incompetence

It emerged that the attack was not the first one on the student, who is new at the school and the bullies had instilled fear in him to the extent that he has been spending nights in a classroom.

I agree with Spicebear when she writes there is no way the authorities in the school could not have know what was going on? A student sleeping in the classrooms? Didn’t the housemaster/matrons realise that a student was missing from dorm rooms? Didnt the security staff notice a pupil sleeping in a classroom.

His mother said their son told them he had reported the matter to the dormitory master but no action was taken. His parents have been trying to see the head teacher in vain.

A head teacher refusing to see parents over such a serious matter?
A dorm master refusing to investigate a serious allegation such as this?

These people have no business running a school and should be answer for their incompetence. What world do they live on?

As for the perpetrators of this crime. Where do we even start with them? First of all we should establish that first and foremost rape is a crime of violence, aggression and domination. Whether a stranger or an acquaintance, a rapist uses a sexual act to establish power over someone else. Rapists are motivated by the desire to control and dominate, not by the need for sexual gratification. Some silly people are running around shouting the ludicrous claim that homosexuality is responsible for this crime. That opinion is foolish, bigoted and misguided at the best. Rape is a crime of VIOLENCE. A rapist is usually not a stranger in a dark alley. In the vast majority of rape or sexual assault cases, the rapist is someone the victim knows as was clearly the case in this scenario.

This crime sadly is just one of a growing list of the growing extreme violence in Kenyan schools.

Just over five years ago high school students who were angry at their teachers padlocked their dormitory building and set it on fire using jerry cans of petrol while their fellow pupils slept inside. They PADLOCKED the doors from outside so that their fellow students would not escape and would burn to death. Students have always been angry with teachers. But to kill your fellow students because you are angry with teachers?

Then earlier this year, on March 28, 5 teenage boys, all high school students, raped girls from a neighbouring school who were on a protest match. Sadly this has happened before. But the numbers seem to be on the increase.

Again and again, we see extreme violence from high school students directed at other high school students. This latest rape at Upper Hill School is just the latest example of this violence. There are measures that will be taken against the administration at Upper Hill but those actions will come to late to help one young student. We need, as a nation, to put in place, a system that will help us understand and come up with solutions to this rising violence in our schools. This violence is growing into an epidemic. If it has not all ready reached there.