If it was not the fact that COVID-19 has preoccupied the world and for the first time made landfall in East Africa, no other event would have occupied Rwandans’ attention than the mass arrest of sexual offender. Now, if there is one institution that knows how to make a grand entrance, it is Rwanda Investigation Bureau (RIB) because it knows how to hold one’s attention. There has been a countrywide campaign against child sexual abuse, especially defilement of underage girls. Cases of underage girls getting impregnated had reached the point where the government could take it no more and promised to crack down on the vice. Sceptics had little reason to be convinced because it was a song they had heard before, and instead of the numbers of defilement cases coming down, last year they more than doubled. So, in one swoop, RIB announced that it had arrested 40 men in Rusizi District for defilement, a very important message to defilers; that the recreation was over. Many had gotten away with it by coming to an understanding with parents, and most time it was with the help of local leaders. And this is in addition to a whole 2 families and local leadership in Rubavu in jail now, facing prosecution for trying to mediate and reconcile differences after a minor and daughter of one family was defiled and impregnated by an old married man from the other family. This rounding up of 40 suspected defilers at a go is just a tip of the iceberg as there are 29 more districts and the city of Kigali to go through. But at least the first step has been taken in the right direction and authorities are beginning to walk the talk.
