I have decided to follow up on the story told last week in this column of a young girl who, some years back, fell victim to sexual assault. Readers were empathic for the welfare of the child in question and were concerned that she receives adequate care and justice. They pointed to policy questions in regards to the kinds of systemic measures that may or may not be in place vis-à-vis the spectre of sexual violence. 

Such questions are very much warranted. On the average about 1,500 children – minors below the consent age of 18 – are sexually assaulted every year; and these are the reported figures, suggesting that much worse is happening in our communities.

The crime is punished with up to life in prison. However, and for confounding reasons, the threat of the punishment has not been a very effective deterrent. In other words, something is amiss in the relationship between the rising figures and the measures for deterrence.

In any case, the sexual abuse – part of the broad category of gender based violence – has the suspected perpetrator on the one hand, and the victim on the other. If systemic responses are to be established, they ought to pursue both justice and to provide immediate care for the victim.

Because of the nature of the violence, such care, we are told, must be ‘holistic’ enough to bring on board the clinician to treat any physical wounds, the psychologist for the mental health aspects, a medico-legal officer to conduct the tests that will help the police officer to complete the criminal file that must then be forwarded to the prosecutor to pursue justice.

On the surface, all this sounds rather straight forward. Until social-cultural forces become mobilised. Much of this complexity was explained last week in a case involving a 67-year old who was ‘caught in the act,’ raping a nine-year old child in the district of Nyagatare.

Granted the fact that the suspect was caught in the act lessens the complexity given the assumed ease of prosecuting the case. Nonetheless, the statements by the police spokesperson for that region went beyond this case and therefore help to highlight some of the difficulties in pursuing similar cases.

First, many cases of sexual violence remain unreported. Why? "Parents and guardians feel ashamed or because they know the attacker as a family friend or relative,” revealed the spokesperson. This, of course, is only partly true, and a little digging is likely to reveal that something more than shame alone is at play.

Second, few cases are like the one mentioned above. In most of them, the inability to preserve evidence undermines the pursuit of justice for the victim, which – in a vicious cycle – helps to perpetuate even more violence.

"Timely [reporting] and [preserving] evidence could be the difference between a conviction and the next victim,” the officer observes. "If a child is sexually assaulted and there is delay in reporting, the suspect could escape and continue his attacks against unsuspecting potential victims,” he continues. "To ensure justice and prevent similar attacks, such crimes should be reported immediately.”

The effective pursuit of justice and care, therefore, lead to a number of observations. Clearly, care is extended to those who have reported cases. As a result, the success of the programmes such as Isange One Stop Centre is tied to the extent to which cases are reported. In turn, this suggests the importance of awareness raising efforts that encourage people to report cases. and to point them to the availability of support services.

The logic may be confounding, however, officials insist that the reason the statistics of reported cases are on the rise is because the sensitisation programmes are working, which means that more victims are reporting the abuse, which also apparently explains the increased uptake for the available care packages.

What is also clear is that the effective pursuit of care and justice must recognise that a confrontation is underway between the responses geared towards tackling such abuse and resistant socio-cultural forces that undermine these efforts, which therefore unwittingly condone and perpetuate the abuse of women and girls, and sometimes men, too. Elsewhere, this has been termed a mindset problem that fails to recognise that such practices are harmful to the entire society.

I’d be remiss if I ignored a reader’s comment, question, from last week: Shouldn’t rape victims be allowed to abort? The short answer, dear reader, is this: They are, with the court’s clearance.