A long way towards accessing justice for a child rape case in Tanzania.

In Ten Years Kiwohede (Kiota Women Health and Development organisation) has managed to Find Justice for one of the victim of rape case .The story starts when the rape incident occurred when tula (not exact name), a 12 years trafficked domestic worker was sexually abused (severely traumatised in her vagina) with her employers brother whom she shared with him a room.

The matter came to light when the victim, shouted, screamed and cried loudly when she was raped, where two women neighbours heard about the cry and later complained to the police. The ladies then called Kiwohede on its hotline number because they sensed that the Tabata police posts wanted to suppress the issue. They were assured that the accused would be taken to Buguruni Police station of which was eligible to deal with such cases, but the two ladies they observed dubious discussions between the accused and his relatives and police, that are when they decide to call Kiwohede for child safety.

“We immediately registered a case at Kisutu court and the girl was taken to the nearby Ilala Hospital for medical examination. The doctor didn’t confirm the claims of rape,” in his report he said the girl lost her hymen because of infection he dislodged any chance of rape, In spite of that we have made sure that the case was taken to court for two years on the proceedings at last yesterday (17th May 2007) Mama Chande one of the Kisutu magistrate confirmed the rape basing on the evidence she had jailed Omari Rodgers (not exact name) for a sentence of 30 years

Its tough and very hard to find justice for rape victims, often times the culprits absconds, there is loss of files, police suppress rape cases ,change of magistrates, fake reports from doctors, denial of evidences, lured parents who sides with culprits, no one interested in manhuntting for culprits or the accuser. Indeed the process to justice suppress more rights of child victims, ignorance and poor community commitment towards helping girls and boys raped deny rights of children to access justice. As now we have quite number of orphans approximately (2.2 million) more rape case are reported all over the country.