The Senate has requested the government to consider following the example set by the Ombudsman’s Office to make public the names of those convicted of corruption and publicly name those convicted of defilement and rape. The request was made on Tuesday, November 17, during a plenary session in which the Senatorial Social Affairs, Human Rights and Petitions Commission presented a report which attempted to dig deep into the issues surrounding defilement and teen pregnancies. The call comes months after the National Public Prosecution Authority (NPPA) announced that it was working on a national registry of all individuals convicted for rape or defilement. However, it is still unknown when it will be established and whether it will be accessible to the general public. Presenting the report, the Chairperson of the Commission, Adrie Umuhire, told the Senators that the lists of the offenders should be shared at all local government levels of administration from the highest to the grassroots so that they are used to set examples. She explained that while the identity of the people who have been convicted of defilement is still unknown because it is not public, in the 2016/17 fiscal year, Prosecution received 2086 files regarding defilement. After scrutiny, 1285 (61 per cent) of these made it to court and won 1052 of these cases. In 2017/18, it received 2996 files, 1866 of these made it to court and it won 1472 of them. In 2018/19, it received 3363 files and 2221 of these made it to court. 1621 of them got a conviction. “Just like the Ministry of Justice publishes a list of those that owe government money, or how the lists published by the Ombudsman’s Office’s list of those convicted of corruption, the list of those convicted of defilement will go a long way in playing a deterrence role,” she said. Worrying trend Umuhire said that some of the concerns were derived from a survey carried out by the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) in 2016 among 200 people who included children who had been defiled, the suspects and the parents of the victims. The survey indicates that 118 of them (59 per cent) were attacked from home and 40 (20 per cent) at school. “Schools and homes are normally supposed to be havens for safe children where children should be taught manners and feel protected. This should be a matter of national concern and extraordinary measures should be put in place to fix because it is threatening the moral fabric and family values of the nation,” she said. Outlined reasons Umuhire outlined several reasons behind this vice but mostly pinpointed poor parenting, misuse of the internet and the increasing number of people who do not fear or care about the long sentences that range between 20 years and life imprisonment. “Our assessment is that parents have neglected their duty to raise their children where most have little to no time to talk to them and understand their needs, to teach them cultural values and explain to them the hormonal changes that they are experiencing,” she said. She said that this is evident with children between 14 and 17 who have sex amongst themselves or with children younger. Way forward The commission in its analysis concluded that this is a result of lack of enough information on reproductive health and in some instances, the internet has forced them to try what they see. The Commission observed that most of the sensitisation programs should be family centred and should not rely largely on media since some people don’t pay attention to these outlets or to ‘Umugoba w’ababyeyi’ programs. It advised the need for materials that are easier to understand for the larger masses and to have more frank conversations on the issues of teen pregnancy and defilement. It was also observed that despite the challenges that have been posed by defilement and teen pregnancies, the issue is yet to be included in the performance contracts commonly known as ‘Imihigo’. The Commission recommended that the government should include all the strategies in place to discourage, fight and uproot the issue of defilement in the performance contract and accord them high marks as an incentive for the society to be involved in uprooting the culture of silence. Prioritise children Responding to the report contents, the Senators advised that the attention should be shifted from concentrating on the culprits to investing almost all the resources into the potential victims. Senator Lambert Dushimimana reminded that every society has it’s ‘bad apples’ but from what has been seen in other countries, long prison sentences do not provide long term solutions. “The law can pursue the culprits but our emphasis needs to be on the children especially from a very young age. We need to teach them to say no, how to tell the bad apples early enough. The children should be our main focus,” he said.
