December 1, 2006
Sex Abuse of Girls Is Stubborn Scourge in Africa
By SHARON LaFRANIERE
SAMBAVA, Madagascar — Thirty miles outside this down-at-the-heels seaside
town, Justin Betombo tends his vanilla plants and cheers the local soccer
team as if he had not a care in the world. And in fact, what was once his
greatest worry has been almost magically lifted from his shoulders.

In the local prosecutor’s office, a file filled with accusations that he
had sodomized his 9-year-old niece has vanished.

Mr. Betombo was arrested in 2003 after the girl, Kenia, said he had
savagely assaulted her. The police obtained his confession, which he later
recanted, and a doctor’s certificate that Kenia had been sexually
violated, rendering her incontinent and anorexic. Twice they sent the case
file to the prosecutor.

There matters ended. Mr. Betombo attended one hearing in the prosecutor’s
office, but Kenia’s parents say they were not told about it. The records
are nowhere to be found. And Mr. Betombo walked away a free man. Kenia’s
parents, distressed by what they saw as a travesty of justice, asked that
her name be published, hoping that her case would set an example.

Among sub-Saharan Africa’s children, such stories are disturbingly common.
Even as this region races to adopt many of the developed world’s norms for
children, including universal education and limits on child labor, one
problem — child sexual abuse — remains stubbornly resistant to change.

In much of the continent, child advocates say, perpetrators are shielded
by the traditionally low status of girls, a lingering view that sexual
abuse should be dealt with privately, and justice systems that constitute
obstacle courses for victims. Data is sparse and sexual violence is
notoriously underreported. But South African police reports give an
inkling of the sweep of child victimization. In the 12 months ending in
March 2005, the police reported more than 22,000 cases of child rape. In
contrast, England and Wales, with nine million more people than South
Africa, reported just 13,300 rapes of women and girls in the most recent
12-month period.

“The prevalence of child rape in South Africa goes from really, really
high to astronomically high,” said Dr. Rachel Jewkes, a specialist on
sexual violence with South Africa’s Medical Research Council.

Africa is not unique in its high rates of abuse. While a survey of nine
countries last year by the World Health Organization found the highest
incidence of child sexual abuse in Namibia — more than one in five women
there reported being sexually abused before age 15 — it also found
frequent abuse in Peru, Japan and Brazil, among other nations. Relatives
are frequent perpetrators in Africa, as in much of the world. But this
continent’s children face added risks, especially at school. Half of
Malawian schoolgirls surveyed in 2006 said male teachers or classmates had
touched them in a sexual manner without their permission.

The number of abuse cases is rising in South Africa, Zimbabwe, Zambia,
Uganda, Kenya, Sierra Leone and other African countries, statistics show.
Whether that means more children are being victimized or more are coming
forward — or both — is impossible to determine, experts say.

Researchers cite various reasons that abuse is so common: poverty, which
makes it harder for parents to keep children safe; a legacy of violent,
oppressed societies, and cultural mores that allow offenders to escape
criminal punishment, often by marrying their victims or compensating their
victims’ families.

But, ultimately, said Dr. Jewkes, of the Medical Research Council, the
vast gap between the status of men and boys and that of women and girls
explains much of the climate of relative tolerance. “If I had to put my
finger on one overriding issue, it would be gender inequality,” she said.

Increasingly, African nations are openly acknowledging the problem, partly
because AIDS has made children more likely to fall ill or die from sexual
abuse. Campaigns against abuse are under way in Zimbabwe, Lesotho,
Swaziland, Kenya, Sierra Leone and elsewhere.

The impact is apparent in Zimbabwe, where a child rights group estimates
that at least 2,000 child rape victims have died of AIDS since 1998.
“Literally for the first time in Zimbabwe’s history, child abuse is no
longer a taboo subject,” said James Elder, a Unicef spokesman.

That said, the response is minuscule compared with the extent of abuse,
said Pamela Shifman, a child protection specialist at Unicef headquarters
in New York. “We see huge numbers of girls affected,” she said. “These
crimes are still treated as the fault or the problem of the victim.”

South Africa is perhaps furthest along in developing the specialized
courts, medical treatment and counseling that have long been standard fare
in the West. But even there, Dr. Jewkes said, appalling police work — for
example, not verifying the addresses of suspects and accusers — routinely
dooms prosecutions.

Beyond that, said Joan van Niekerk, national coordinator of Childline,
which runs South Africa’s child crisis hot lines, children regularly
complain that coping with the criminal justice system is worse than the
sexual abuse itself.

Like much of the region, Madagascar, an island of 18 million off Africa’s
southeastern coast, is making headway, but still falls short of even South
Africa’s low standard.

Since 2000, Unicef has set up 11 child-protection teams of doctors,
educators and judges to inform the public about sex abuse and assist
victims. Hassan Mouigni, who leads vice investigations at the main police
station in Antananarivo, Madagascar’s capital of 1.4 million, sees some
results. This year, he said, the station has investigated 95 cases,
compared with 40 in all of 2003.

But medical and legal authorities say the vast majority of families still
hew to a tradition of accepting payment from perpetrators. The few who
press charges are plunged into a criminal justice process that Mr. Mouigni
calls deeply frustrating.

He can offer victims who arrive at his station little more than an officer
behind a typewriter — no counselors, no video cameras to record testimony,
no toy-filled rooms or friendly intermediaries. Instead, girls as young as
5 are expected to confront their tormentors face to face. Perhaps most
daunting, poor families must produce at least $15 to cover investigation
costs like gloves and paper for medical exams.

That was nearly enough to deter Claudine Ravoniarisoa, who appeared at Mr.
Mouigni’s station one recent Thursday with her 15-year-old daughter.
Wringing her hands nonstop, the girl told officers that a neighbor had
raped her while her mother was hospitalized. “He destroyed my life and my
body,” she said.

But once her mother learned of the costs, she decided to identify the
perpetrator only as “Mr. X.”

“I have no money to pursue this,” she protested, while an officer tried to
persuade her to do so.

In another room, Domoima Rahamtanirima pressed a case against her
brother-in-law in the molestation of her 5-year-old, Menja. For two weeks
afterward, Mrs. Rahamtanirima said, the girl cried when she urinated.

Mrs. Rahamtanirima borrowed money for the required medical exam. Nothing
was left to buy the medicine the doctor had prescribed for Menja. Her file
complete, the little girl traipsed in her frilly white dress to a
courthouse as packed with accusers, accused and their supporters as a New
York subway station at rush hour. She waited four hours, then sat down at
a table before them all and, in a tiny voice, identified her uncle, seated
across from her, as her assailant.

“We had to do it,” said her mother, who said that everyone in her village
knew about the case and asked that her daughter’s name and picture be
used. “Everybody should be aware that things like this should not happen
to children.”

A Quest for Redress

Kenia’s parents, Antoine and Joazandry Moravelo, are equally passionate
about the need for justice for their daughter. But after four fruitless
years, they have all but given up hope. Though her photograph and name
have appeared in local newspapers, they say, no one has been held
accountable.

Kenia, the sixth of eight children, moved in with her aunt and uncle Lydia
and Justin Betombo at the age of 8 after they promised to educate her.
Sharing child care is common in Africa, and the Betombos, who lived 45
minutes away, had more than the Moravelos: a car and a two-room,
tree-shaded house with sheet metal walls instead of the Moravelos’
thatched-roof reed hut.

But Kenia said the house was no haven. She said, “my uncle showed me his
penis whenever he had a chance, and I always ran away.” Her aunt’s stock
response, she said, was, “Don’t talk about that.”

One night in mid-2002, when her aunt was out, Kenia said, her uncle
summoned her to his bed. “Because I refused, he came over to my bed,” she
said. Afterward, she said, he told her, “If you talk about what happened,
I will kill you.” She said she told her aunt anyway, and was instructed to
keep quiet. The physical consequences of the attack, however, were hard to
hide.

Kenia lost control of her bowels, had to quit school and was increasingly
homebound. For six months or more, her only treatment was from a
traditional healer who told her to boil herbs and wash with them. Finally,
emaciated and weak, Kenia approached a neighbor. “She said, ‘I am sick; I
am sick,’ and she was crying,” said the neighbor, Suzanne Mboty, who knew
Kenia’s parents.

Hours after the neighbor reached his village, Mr. Moravelo retrieved
Kenia. “She was so thin, so thin, I couldn’t believe it,” he said. Her
mother said Kenia could not even sit down. “I opened her bag, and I saw
all her underwear full of feces,” she said. “I said, ‘My God, what is
this?’ ”

Kenia refused to say. But at the local health clinic, the nurse held up
scissors and threatened to operate if Kenia did not talk.

That began nearly four years of medical procedures for Kenia, including a
colostomy, two operations to close it, and repeated hospitalizations for
wasting, incontinence and anorexia. Her mother said she sometimes refuses
to eat because defecation is painful. Medical reports indicate that the
muscle controlling defecation has been largely destroyed and her anal
canal is heavily scarred.

The family is rent: Kenia’s parents had to sell their rice field and move
to Diego-Suarez in the north for her treatment. Most of their other
children remained behind, in the care of elder siblings. Kenia, now 13, is
temporarily in Antananarivo, where a doctor is trying to treat her with a
special diet.

A surgeon who recently examined her said a full recovery was unlikely. The
uncertainty preys on Kenia, her mother said. “Sometimes she tells me, ‘My
body is hurting. I have so many problems. I don’t go to school. I just
feel this sickness all around me,’ ” she said.

The family’s legal efforts have met even less success. Mr. Moravelo lodged
a complaint with the cash-short police, but the officers had no car; he
hired a taxi so they could pick up Mr. Betombo for questioning. Frightened
and sobbing, Kenia confronted her uncle at the chaotic station.

Justice Subverted

Mr. Betombo and his wife denied Kenia’s account. But ultimately — after
the police beat him, Mr. Betombo said — he signed a confession, was
arrested and carted off to the prosecutor’s office in nearby Antalaha.

Kenia’s father said that was the last he heard until a few days later,
when friends told him that Justin Betombo was “free and happy” back in his
village.

Mr. Betombo said he had convinced the prosecutor that his confession was
false. Kenia’s parents say they were never summoned to contradict him.

“I took this girl in as my daughter,” Mr. Betombo said. “I really can’t
understand why they say that I could have done such an awful thing to her.
I think they were jealous of me and they wanted to ruin my life.”

Sambava’s police department again sent the file to the prosecutor’s office
months later. But Sophie Ramahakaraha, the prosecutor in charge, now says
that she has no record or memory of it. Real instances of child rape are
rare, she said. “Very often the parents are poor and they use this
procedure to get money,” she said.

But to Daul Randriamalaza, a Sambava police inspector, there is no
question about who was the victim here.

“I don’t want to talk about corruption here, but that is what could have
happened in this case,” he said as prisoners watched from the station’s
tiny cell.

“I have children myself. How can I be happy about this?”

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