A minor testified in a case where her father is accused of sexually abusing her and told the court that he was only massaging her.
She told a Kibera court that she had sprained her arm and asked her father to massage it but a neighbour overheard the sounds she made out of pain and assumed she was being defiled.
“It was during the Corona period and one day I had twisted my arm and I told my father to massage me as I was feeling pain. I was only saying ‘ouch’ and our neighbor mistook it for sex,” she said.
The alleged abuse happened in June 2020 at their Keroka home in Kangemi, Nairobi county.
The girl said her father was massaging her in the presence of her sister. Their mother was away at the time.
“My dad never defiled me. Our neighbour asked me why I was making a lot of noise at night. She did not believe that my father had not defiled me, she went and called other neighbours and took my father to the police station.”
The minor told the court that after her father’s arrest, she was called to the police station and forced to record a statement saying he defiled her.
Following her testimony, the prosecution considered the girl a hostile witness but she maintained that she was telling the truth.
She argued that she was a staunch Christian who ascribes to the doctrines of the SDA church and that what she was telling the court was the truth.
The minor, who appeared in court with a child, also told Kibera Senior Principal Magistrate Charles Mwaniki that she got pregnant while staying at a children’s home where neighbours took her after the defilement allegations.
The case will proceed later next month.
