City school, parent clash over student sexual assault claim

A parent at Nairobi’s Aquinas Boys High School is entangled with the institution’s administration over claims of sexual assault of his child by fellow students.

While the school management has refuted the allegations and accused the parent of stage managing the matter for unknown reasons, the mother of the Form One boy accuses the school of trying to cover up the matter.

The school management’s claims were collaborated by the police who said that despite their pleas with the parents of the boy to report the incident with them since Saturday, they had not done so and instead turned to civil activists to prosecute the case.

“I have been persuading the parents to give me more details on the case since Saturday without success. They had earlier claimed to have reported the case at Thika Police Station, but when we cross-checked, there was nothing. They have even refused to give us the OB number of the report,” Superintendent David Wafula, the deputy director of Children Protection Unit at the Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI) told the People Daily. The OCS at the Jogoo Road police station which neighbours the school, Japhet Nyabengi also denied knowledge of any report made to his station.

Homosexuality issue

Allegations over the incident at Aquinas High School emerged on a day that Education Cabinet Secretary, Prof George Magoha declared that he is not against homosexuality, saying he has been quoted out of context on the matter.

Magoha, however, said that they should not disturb the peace in schools and those who cannot contain themselves should be day scholars.

“In terms of people who are either lesbians or gay, my pronouncement was taken out of context but I will repeat what I said… I said that if you are a homosexual in a boarding school and you are hopping from one bed of a student to another your rights end there,” said Magoha, after inspecting Competency-Based Curriculum (CBC) classrooms at Parklands Arya Girls secondary school.

He said that those who cannot contain themselves should be closer to their parents who have the first responsibility to talk to them, insisting that the proclamation is not unfair.