Maasai women dressed in traditional beads waited patiently at an office in this dusty, one-street Kenyan town to register their charges against British soldiers they are accusing of rape.
”They pulled me into a nearby thicket and began fighting about who would rape me first,” said Nayook Ole Mosiany. ”I have never recovered from that day.”
It all happened 19 years ago, when as a 17-year-old she was tending cattle. Three British soldiers on a training exercise nearby, attacked her near Dol Dol, 250 kilometres north of Nairobi.
It isn’t the first time British troops training in this semi-arid area of rolling hills have been accused of abuses by the region’s Maasai and Samburu tribespeople.
Last July, more than 200 people from Maasai and Samburu tribes were awarded millions of dollars because of injuries and deaths caused by unexploded British munitions left on ranges where nomadic herdsmen grazed their cattle.
On Thursday, Mosiany and more than a dozen others filled out questionnaires at the office of a Kenyan human rights organisation, Impact, which is helping London-based lawyers Leigh, Day and Co. collect evidence about the claims.
The British government this week granted legal aid to the women who are alleging they’ve been raped. The Ministry of Defence has said it could not comment because the alleged rapes are also under criminal investigation by the Royal Military Police.
The allegations began to surface when lawyer Martyn Day was investigating claims that unexploded British ordnance had killed and maimed scores of herdsmen near Dol Dol.
Last July, Britain agreed to pay $7,4-million on a ”limited liability basis” to 233 of those victims.
Some 650 Maasai and Samburu women have come forward with allegations of rape between 1972 and last year. Many more are expected to follow.
Day acknowledges that following the success of the munitions’ case -which turned more than 100 impoverished herdsmen into millionaires in Kenyan terms — there could be bogus complainants.
But he’s convinced there is a case against the British troops.
”In the end, the central issue is this, were there a significant number of women raped by British soldiers, and the answer is almost certainly yes,” Day said from London.
”The women had almost given up on justice … nothing happened despite them bringing it to the attention of British officers” and Kenyan officials.
Day said he has documents backing at least 100 cases, such as police and medical reports.
Discussing rape is a taboo in Kenya, and many of the women say their husbands ostracised them after the alleged rapes. Single women who have been raped in Kenya have little prospect of getting married.
”These people have been marginalised for so long that they didn’t have the means or courage to report these rapes until now,” said Julius Silakan, project coordinator at Impact. ”Ninety-five percent of the women here are illiterate.”
Jane Siyoke Meshami said she knew the soldiers who she alleged raped her in 1998 as she tended goats one afternoon.
”We were friends with the soldiers,” the 30-year-old said. ”They visited us a lot and brought us biscuits and sweets. Then one day three of them came and raped me.”
When she gave birth to Monica four years ago, she was forced to leave her community.
”The other children tease my daughter about being white. She cries because she doesn’t understand. But I haven’t told her why they tease her,” Meshami said.
Day said he would seek compensation of between 20 000 and 30 000 pounds (US$33,200 to US$49,800) for each alleged victim.- Sapa-AP