Abstract:
Kenya police annual reports show that sexual offences are escalating in Kenya. This
study was done to find out the challenges the police officers within Kiambu County
faced in the course of evidence collection, investigation and prosecution of sexual
offences in Kiambu County, Kenya. The research involved conducting interviews and
administration of Likert scale questionnaire for police officers trained on handling
sexual offenses as the key informants, and use of data abstraction tool to collect data
from the police record files in the year 2016. Analysis of P3 forms indicated that 50% of
reported victims had hymen broken, 40.9% had genital lacerations and 9.1% had hymen
intact. It was established common laboratory tests ordered in rape cases are: high
vaginal swab (77.3%), HIV (95.5%), pregnancy (77.3%) and DNA analysis (13.6%). Great
amount of evidence (77%) collected in rape investigation is not sent to forensic
laboratories for analysis. The other setbacks included lack of collaboration between the
police gender department and other government agencies like health facilities handling
cases of sexual offences, and inadequate support for the gender offices to effectively
handle cases of sexual offences. Only a third of reported sexual offence cases reach full
trial. Inadequacies were observed in filling of the P3 and Post Rape Care (PRC) forms
and there was lack of adherence to chain of custody in evidence handling. Challenges
in investigation and prosecution of sexual offences adversely affects justice for the
victims. Recommendation for continuous specialised training to clinicians on forensic
medical evidence, infrastructural upgrade, modern tools for gender departments and a
multidisciplinary approaches in handling sexual offences.
