By Prince Musa in Kenema
The Manager of Rainbow Center in Kenema, Safiatu Jajah Jalloh, has warned of a rise in cases of sexual violence which she said is also fueling teenage pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases.
Jalloh said the district has recorded 186 rape cases since January this year.
“Sexual penetration is on the increase. Most of the cases are causing other problems like teenage pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases such as gonorrhea,” she told Politico.
The Rainbow Center is a privately run facility that cares for women and girls who suffer sexual violence. They provide medical and psychosocial services to support the wellbeing of victims.
This increase in rape in the district comes at a time when President Julius Maada Bio has declared rape as a national emergency in the country.
According to the breakdown Jalloh gave, the center received 70 cases in January, 52 in February, 54 in March and 10 in April. She said they were yet to tally the final data for May.
The Assistant Director East, Ministry of Social welfare Gender and Children Affairs, Alice Jeneba Koroma, described the statistics as worrying and said government was working on a regulation to protect girls and women from such abuses.
“Government is working on a law that will punish the perpetrators for these offences. Until the relevant laws are enforced fully, without any compromise, these girls will not be fully protected,” Koroma said.
The spate of the increase has caused a strain on the already tight resources of the Rain Bow Center, according to Jalloh.
“At the moment we are stretched. We do not only attend to patients in Kenema but also from Kailahun, Kono and even some areas in Liberia,” she said.
Jalloh added that their Kenema office is the only place in the eastern region that has the appropriate facility to do the relevant tests.
“It is only our medical examination on sexual matters that can be tendered in court for prosecution,” she said.
Police in the district have also confirmed how desperate the situation is. The head of the Family Support Unit in Kenema, Assistant Superintendent of Police Mustapha Benson Konneh, said: “Sexual penetration in the district is on the increase. We get more report on gender based violence more than any other case per week.”
ASP Konneh also said the situation is bad because relatives of the victims are mostly not cooperating with the Police to get justice for the victims.
“Most of the time we get intelligence from community members (on rape) and when incidents of such occur the relatives want to handle the matter at family level at the expense of the victim,” he said.
In extremely rural areas in Kenema, the situation might even be worse. Authorities say there are many cases of rape that are not even reported because of family intervention.
At the moment, the Rainbow Center say most of the girls that are found pregnant after the test are then sent to the under-five units in the Kenema government hospital, whiles those living in the rural areas are referred to other Public Health Units.
To tackle the situation, Jalloh says the Center is embarking on a wide scale sensitization program in the district, targeting schools and places of worship. In Kenema city alone, more than two dozen schools have been earmarked, she said.
“In Kenema city we have targeted 24 primary schools and 8 secondary schools. We will also include stakeholders, whiles trying to reach out to the rural areas of the district, especially teachers and religious leaders,” she said.
But to achieve the objectives of this program will not be easy. Jalloh said things are already difficult for the center.
“There are numerous challenges in doing our job, such as the lack of mobility to reach far places, stationaries to run the office and even electricity. It is hard for us to do our job if EDSA doesn’t provide electricity,” she said.
(c) 2019 Politico Online
