ational as her guardian and Next friend) & 11 others v COMMISSIONER OF POLICE/INSPECTOR GENERAL OF THE NATIONAL POL 2. The African Charter on Human and People’s Rights notably Articles 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 and 18. 3. The Convention on Elimination of all forms of discrimination against women(CEDAW) notably Articles 1 and 2. 4. 26. The International Convention on Civil and political rights(ICCPR)notably Articles 3, 7, 9 and I further find that the petitioners in this petition have suffered horrible, unspeakable and immeasurable harm due to acts of defilement committed against them. They each suffered physical harm in the form of internal and external wounds from the perpetrators assaults and some suffered consequences of unwanted pregnancies vested on children not physically mature enough to bear children. The petitioners have suffered psychological harm from assaults made worse by the threat, fear and reality of contracting HIV/AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases or infections. Whereas the perpetrators are directly responsible for the harms, to the petitioners, the respondents’ herein cannot escape blameand responsibility. The respondent’s ongoing failure to ensure criminal consequence through proper and effective investigation and prosecution of these crimes has created a “climate of Impunity” for commission of sexual offences and in particular defilment. As a result of which the perpetrators know they can commit crimes against innocent children without fear of being apprehended and prosecuted. This to me makes the respondents responsible for physical and psychological harms inflicted by perpetrators, because of their laxity and their failure to take prompt and positive action to deter defilment. The worse is that the petitioners’ visited various police stations after defilements and gave names of the perpetrators being people they knew yet the respondents did not bother to take appropriate action. Instead the respondents showed disbelief, blamed the victims, humiliated them, yelled at and ignored them as they put them under vigorous cross-examination and failed to take action. The respondents are in my view directly responsible for psychological harm caused by their actions and inactions. The petitioner has since become self-doubtful, self-loathing, self-blame, and have low self-esteem. That has been documented amongst the petitioners following contact with the police. It is as a result of the above-mentioned that the petitioners had to flee and seek protection and safety from the 12th petitioner leading to their separation from their close family members, friends, and community and removal from their homes, schools and where close support was mostly needed. The failure to act appropriately is directly liable for the psychological damage experienced by the petitioners arising from their alienation from family, schools and their own communities. The petitioners’ counsel attached opinions of two experts on Kenyan and International Police standards for establishing the standards to be applied to police treatment of defilement. The experts on Kenya Policing standards concluded inter alia that: “In all cases investigations were inadequate in that the Police failed to visit scenes of crime to gather evidence that is vital in collaboration of a case, did not interview witnesses/victims, samples were not taken and even those produced by victims were never forwarded to the Government analysts’ for examination…” The expert on international policing standards concluded inter alia that: “The Investigations of these eleven cases fall short of international policing standards. The very basic steps required to investigate crimes of this nature have been overlooked and http://www.kenyalaw.org - Page 10/17