Rwanda Investigation Bureau (RIB) has urged the public in general and local leaders in particular, to join hands in denouncing suspects of defilement and all work to ensure they are brought to book.
“Fighting child defilement requires a holistic approach involving different stakeholders from public and private institutions to jointly address factors that influence defilement such as extreme poverty, broken families, domestic violence, bad neighborhood, peer group, bad attitudes, and ignorance” Thierry B. Murangira, The RIB spokesperson said.
Murangira made this call 1following the launch of a countrywide exercise to arrest suspected defilers with view to give justice to the victims.
“The Statistics of child defilement is not good at all,”Murangira said in an interview.
The operation which was launched few days back has seen at least 60 people arrested in two districts; 50 in Gicumbi and 10 in Risizi.
Speaking to The New Times Murangira said that this is also in line with follow-up on a report released last year on the state of defilement in the country.
“Defilement is among most prevalent crimes in Rwanda with devastating consequences both to the victim and the society. It is often predicated on convincing the victim not to report the case, and as a result, reporting, and disclosure become low or delayed,” Murangira said, adding that this impedes justice to the victims.
Murangira added that most suspects are known in the community or family and often groom potential victims and befriend their families prior to the commission of defilement.
Other major offenders are relatives who live with families of the victims, which may lead to cover-up of the suspects, ostensibly not to bring shame to the family.
According to a report released by the investigation bureau in October last year, during a period of three years ending June 2021, they recorded 1,163 cases of incest – involving family members who defile children they live with.
Murangira said that this is the situation where the family member that is presumed to be the protector of the child becomes the predator.
“This wicked behaviour of defiling children can’t end without their support,” he said.
According to Murangira, they will continue with the operation in different districts depending on the availability of information from the communities.
“We base it on the availability of information. The moment all necessary information has been collected, case files compiled we proceed in arresting suspects” he explained.
According to RIB’s report, in three years (August 2018 to June 2021), a total of 12,840 defilement cases were recorded indicating an increase of 1,897 from the same preceding period.
These cases involved 13,646 victims and 13,485 suspects.