Buterere is a district in Bujumbura. For years it was an open rubbish dump. The water supply is polluted and thousands of homeless people roam around every day looking for something to sell.
At the end of July 2016, some girls had gone back home, leaving the care home where they usually lived. One afternoon some of them gathered together to spend some time enjoying each other’s company. A man entered the house, accompanied by a woman. He violated the girls, one after the other, and left, leaving them in tears under the threat of the machete carried by the woman.
A complaint was lodged. The rapist was arrested and taken to the police station. The judicial police officer examined the record of the complaint and investigation. He sent the children to the Seruka Medical Centre where the rape was confirmed. All that remained was the transfer of the rapist to the Central Prison in Mpimba.
But the file disappeared. The judicial police officer was transferred elsewhere. The rapist was released. The girls remain without justice.
An investigation was opened into the people involved in this latest episode of violence. The girls have no father, they are daughters of the road. Some also have no mother. Therefore they are destined to suffer.
How much will the rapist have paid to avoid ending up in Mpimba? And yet, the Burundian Criminal Code is clear, Article 385: prison from 5 to 20 years for each offence of rape carried out with threats and violence. The penalty is aggravated when the victims are minors.
The work of searching for the truth and for the culprits has begun. The so-called head-officer says no one has reported anything to him. Yet every week they hold a security meeting, as everyone knows, with the commander of the police station and the head-officer when they try to flush out anything that might endanger the stability of the area. Evidently a triple rape of underage girls implemented under the threat of a weapon is not considered a relevant fact. The police commander says he recalls something vaguely, as if he were speaking of the theft of a chicken.
Of what importance is a little girl who is from a poor village in the hills, with an old torn dress and a future already pre-determined by others?
