Boniface Gitonga, aged 22, was sentenced to 15 years imprisonment last December after a court in Meru found him guilty of defiling a 16-year-old girl. On August 20, High Court judge David Majanja reduced Gitonga’s sentence to five years.
The judge found that the trial magistrate failed to take account of the girl’s testimony that she and Gitonga were lovers. That did not change the fact that defilement occurred, but Majanja considered the relationship a mitigating factor.
She had told her parents on New Year’s Day that she was going to visit her grandmother but instead went to Gitonga’s house. That was where the parents found her after a search. Gitonga was arrested, charged and convicted.
Last month, The Star photographer and writer Andrew Kasuku went undercover in Kisauni, Mombasa. He attended a night party organised by teenagers who are at home due to closure of schools to curb the spread of Covid-19. In a story titled, “Inside a teenage party amid school closures” (September 3, p.12-13), Kasuku described what he saw:
“Inside the house, high school students chat and laugh aloud as others turn the sitting room into a dance floor…Some boys chat at the doorstep, holding beer bottles concealed in newspapers…A girl dressed in a dera, a popular Coast dress that gives women bodily freedom to shake, disappears into a corridor with a tall boy…”
Kasuku’s host pointed him to another merrymaker. “You see that girl? She was beaten by her father last week after he discovered she had been sneaking out to her boyfriend’s house at night.” The girl reportedly yelled at her father during the beating: “He is my boyfriend and there’s nothing you can do about it. I love him.”
Such stories are not new in the media or in the experiences of many people. The accepted tale, however, is that all girls grow up with their legs tightly closed together until the wedding night. If they engaged in sex before then, they were victims, forced or lured into it by bad men.
The epidemic of teenage pregnancies the media is awash with, especially since the closure of schools in March, is entirely attributed to girls being forced (defiled) or lured with simple gifts.
The media helps spread this gospel that is the favourite of NGOs, teachers, priests, politicians, parents and many other authority figures in society.
A debate that teenagers engage in sex and therefore the age of consent should be lowered probably to 16 ended abruptly in silence, after a deafening shouting match between moral absolutists and pragmatists.
Boys are languishing in prison for defilement whereas the sex was consensual. In court, a 17-year-old girl’s testimony that she was not coerced into sex but took part willingly is mostly dismissed. She is not competent to give consent.
It is not clear how 18 years as the age of consent was arrived at. Some want it raised to 21 years, although biological maturity starts far earlier.
Like boys, teenage girls desire and seek sexual satisfaction. Everyone knows this but few would openly admit it. It is the boys and “beastly men” who are blamed and who suffer for consensual underage sex in a society that has its collective head firmly buried in the sand.
This wilful ignorance and the media amplification of it prevent an honest discussion about teenage sexuality and how best it might be handled to avoid disastrous consequences. Specifically, the sexual desires of girls are denied as non-existent.
The “disco matanga” phenomenon, the well-known escapades of teenagers on holiday or during school trips and other activities are, supposedly, the evil work of boys and other male predators taking advantage of innocent girls.
Away from sex issues, of late the media seems to have taken the preferential option for the “girl child” a notch higher, as a keen reporter might write. Girls are achievers and responsible, while the boys are heedlessly headed down the path of ruin in drug dens, violence and all manner of criminality.
Here is a sample of stories of angels and demons:
“She cracks ribs even in the face of a pandemic”. Story of 19-year-old online comedian Elsa Majimbo (Nation, September 4, p.3).
“Meet Teacher Joy, a teen giving pupils free tuition (Saturday Nation, August 15, p.3).
“2017 KCPE star Goldalyn conquers new territories” (Sunday Nation, August 16, p.2-3).
“Busia girls wow with art educating public on Covid” (The Star, August 20, p.13).
“Kenyans rally behind embattled rugby star”. Story of Daniel Adongo, “once the most decorated and best paid Kenyan sportsman abroad” who “appears to have gone into drugs” (Standard, August 15, p.2).
“Keep calm, we will save Dan Odongo, says family” (Nation, August 15, p.2).
“Detectives probe big money link in Kilimani killing.” Story of Kevin Omwenga, 28 (Sunday Nation, August 23).
“Kenyan busted in Sh3.7 billion US opioid scandal.” Story about Duncan Muthoni Wanjohi, 23, and three others (Saturday Nation, August 8, p.3).
“University student who bought two planes and lived life in the fast lane.” Story about dollar fraudster in the US Jeffrey Ndungi (Nation, August 6, p.4-5).
Who is setting this agenda for the media? Society will reap the bitter fruits of this pointless “Battle of the Sexes.”
