The Office of the Director of Prosecutions has said it is handling 892 cases of defilement at the Coast that occurred between 2023 and 2024.
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00:00and we narrowed down to Kuale because we realized there are so many offenses
00:04that are coming from this county particularly on children and I think in the course of
00:12the few weeks or the months something will be done because we want to understand why
00:18Kuale for example has a very high number compared to other counties like Taita Taveta.
00:24Could be population, could be the lifestyle.
00:29But at least this information has been brought to other government agencies and we want to discuss
00:34and find solutions to this problem. The Kenya demographic and health survey 2022 shows 14.8
00:42percent of girls aged between 15 and 19 have ever been pregnant. Whether it resulted in children is
00:50a different question but this is a huge number. With this reality on prevalence of sexual violence
00:58against women and children gaps in the justice system mean that offenders act with impunity,
01:04victims have no access to justice or support services and millions of vulnerable women and
01:10children live without protection. We tend to move to prevention from reactive that we are here
01:17reporting you know investigation, prosecution and the world of judicial process. Already the
01:23child has been harmed. What are we going to do as a team to reduce those cases? As a prosecutor who
01:30exercises his mind and of course being guided by the judicial guidelines may feel that you need a
01:37little bit more bullets in order to fire you know properly and sometimes those kind of situations
01:43cause a bit of delay but it's not because of perhaps lack of seriousness on our part.
01:50We want something which when it goes to court it will stand the test of scrutiny. Protecting
01:57women and children against violence is an obligation shared by many different actors
02:03involving both state and non-state actors. Policing is one of the essential services
02:11over coordinated multi-sectoral response to violence against women and children.