Child sexual abuse, including acts of apparent ritual mutilation, has reached alarming proportions in Kenya with perpetrators using brutal and sophisticated means to keep their victims silent, according to a nationwide study.
"The abuse of children's rights in Kenya has become endemic," said Millie Odhiambo, the head of Child Rights Advisory, Documentation and Legal Center (CRADLE) which compiled the report released last week.
"Alarmingly, the most common form of abuse against children appear to be sexual abuse that takes the form of defilement, oral sex, exposing children to pornography and prostitution, amongst others," she said.
"Not only has the incidence of abuse apparently risen, but the forms and modalities thereof have become more complicated, sophisticated and egregious with abusers taking extra measures to ensure that the abuse remains either undetected or that the victim is permanently silenced," Odhiambo said.
The study found that sexual abuse of children, particularly of youngsters under the age of four, was on the rise around the east African country.
Of 717 cases of child abuse reported between March last year and this year, 74 percent involved incest and other 22 percent were other forms of rape and sexual attack, according to the report.
In 43.2 percent of those cases, the victims were girls between one month and four years old.
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