Wings of a Bird

Scourge of child sexual abuse takes toll on girls in sub-Saharan Africa - International Herald Tribune
One night in mid-2002, Kenia said, her uncle summoned her to his bed. "Because I refused, he came over to my bed," she said. Afterward, she said, he told her: "If you talk about what happened I will kill you."
Months later, Kenia, whose bowel had been severely damaged, told a neighbor. Nearly four years of medical procedures, including a colostomy, followed.
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Betombo was arrested in 2003 after the girl, Kenia, said he had savagely assaulted her. The police obtained his confession, which he later recanted, and a doctor's certificate that Kenia had been sexually violated, rendering her incontinent and anorexic. Twice they sent the case file to the local prosecutor.
... The records are nowhere to be found. Betombo walked away a free man.
Among sub-Saharan Africa's children, this is a distressingly common story. Even as this region races to adopt many of the developed world's norms for children, from universal education to limits on child labor, child sexual abuse remains stubbornly difficult to eradicate.
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Labels: suffering