A 50 year-old man has been handed life imprisonment for marrying a minor at the age of nine, in 2019.
The man, identified as Mr Saigulu Ololosereka, was served with the sentence after pleading guilty for the offence which he committed three years ago.
When delivering the judgment, Narok Court Senior Resident Magistrate Ms Phyllis Shinyada said that the life imprisonment judgement was to serve both as a comeuppance for the offence committed by Mr Ololosereka, and again, to serve as a lesson to those who’d later think of committing the same offence in future. “To send a message to others with similar behavior, this court has an obligation to protect the interests of the victim who is minor, whose life will never be the same again,” said Ms Shinyada.
She added: “He( the accused) has been defiling the child since she was 10 years old or thereabout, therefore with the evidence adduced to this court, he is found guilty and will serve life imprisonment for defilement and three years for marrying a minor contrary to the law,”
In addition to the life imprisonment served to Mr Ololosereka, other casualties were parents to the minor. The court found out that the girl’s parents’ leniency must have also contributed to the girl’s early marriage to Mr Ololosereka. The court therefore served the parents with arrest warrant.
Cases of parents giving out their girls for marriage have been rampant in recent time – though the government, through the Ministry of Heritage, Gender and Youth, has played an important role in ameliorating the situation.
