Funerals can be lengthy affairs in western Kenya, and Liz, a 16-year-old schoolgirl, was out late at a wake for her grandfather that had stretched into the evening. She was on her way home when she recognised some familiar and unfriendly faces in the darkness. She knew instantly that the six men in front of her meant her harm. A tall girl, she tried to run. When they caught up with her, she tried to fight. Her attackers, thought to be aged between 16 and 20, began by punching and kicking her. After she was hurt too badly to resist, they took it in turns to rape her. The problem was that the teenager would not submit quietly: she kept screaming.

When they had finished with the girl, they dragged her to a deep pit-latrine nearby and threw her inside. But despite her horrendous injuries and a fall of nearly 12ft (3.6m), Liz managed to find the earthen steps used by the workers who dug the latrine to get out. As she pulled her broken body up the steps, villagers who had heard her cries found her.

They quickly raised a mob to give chase. The schoolgirl knew some of the men who had raped her and started shouting their names. The villagers managed to find three of Liz's attackers and frogmarched them to the police outpost in the village of Tingolo, in Kenya's north-western county of Busia. The officers arrested the trio for assault and promised the girl's angry neighbours that the men would be punished. At daybreak, the rapists were handed curved machetes, known as "slashers", and told to cut grass in the police compound. Duly punished, they were sent home.

The morning after the attack, Liz (not her real name) was taken to a dispensary, a rudimentary pharmacy that is the closest much of rural Kenya gets to a clinic, where she was given antibiotics and paracetamol. It was only when she found that she still could not walk, a week later, that her mother sold their chickens – the family's only source of income – and took her to a medical clinic in the nearest town. The doctor ignored the fact that she was doubly incontinent and told her she needed physiotherapy. Her condition worsened and her mother leased the family's land for about £60 – effectively mortgaging their home – to get her to the nearest big town, Kakamega, where she was eventually diagnosed with a fistula and damage to her spinal cord.

This appalling, tragic tale would never have reached the outside world had it not been for the outrage of Jared Momanyi, the director of one of a handful of Kenyan clinics that specialise in the treatment of victims of sexual violence, to which Liz was eventually referred. He called a young reporter at the Daily Nationin the capital, Nairobi, who had previously written a story about the facility in Eldoret, a town perched on the western side of Kenya's Great Rift Valley. "It troubled me so much I needed to take it head on and tell the world," he said. "This was an attempted murder and it's not an isolated case; it's one among many."

When the Nation's Njeri Rugene visited Liz more than three months after the 26 June gang rape, she found a broken, traumatised girl in a wheelchair. The story Rugene wrote helped raise £4,000 to pay for an operation to repair Liz's internal injuries, the first of two procedures the girl will need to have any chance of controlling her bladder and bowels or walking again.

What has made the teenager's trauma even worse is that her assailants are still free. "She can't understand why people keep coming to ask questions but those men don't get arrested," said Rugene.

Three of those who raped Liz are pupils at schools near her own and police have had the names of all six attackers since 27 June. After stories appeared in local newspapers, officers were finally sent to arrest those still in school. Teachers at one of the schools asked if the arrests could be postponed to allow them to take part in exams. The request was granted and police claimed afterwards that they were "tricked" by the teachers, who helped the pupils go into hiding.

Mary Mahoka, a social worker with a local child protection organisation, said cases such as Liz's were the product of entrenched chauvinism in her home area of Busia, an impoverished county close to the shore of Lake Victoria.

Polygamy was widely practised and girls were not valued by the community, she said. When she first started to work with rape victims in 1998, she found that perpetrators would pay for their crime by handing over a goat or a bag of maize to the girl's parents.

Last week, Mahoka was helping a six-year-old girl who had been sexually assaulted by a man in his 20s. "It's happening every day, but often it's not reported," she said.

Mahoka, whose organisation is partly funded by UK aid, has to disguise the nature of her group's work, calling it "rural education and economic enhancement" so as not to provoke hostility among traditionalists in the community.

She has investigated the gang rape and says it was not a chance occurrence: "Liz had rejected advances from one of the boys, so he brought his friends to discipline her."

After reading about Liz's ordeal, Nebila Abdulmelik, a women's rights activist in Nairobi, launched an online petition with the international campaign group Avaaz that has attracted more than 660,000 signatures. "Letting rapists walk free after making them cut grass has to be the world's worst punishment for rape," she said. "There is a silent epidemic in Kenya. It's not as loud as in Congo or South Africa, but the statistics are high."

As many as eight out of 10 Kenyan women have experienced physical violence and/or abuse during childhood. A report from Kenya's national commission on human rights in 2006 found that a girl or woman is raped every 30 minutes.

Orchestrating rape is also among the charges facing Kenya's president, Uhuru Kenyatta, who goes on trial on 12 November at the international criminal court accused of organising the violence that killed at least 1,300 people after a 2007 disputed election.

Abdulmelik notes that, under Kenya's Sexual Offences Act, Liz's assailants should face prison sentences of not less than 15 years. The same legislation stipulates that the expenses incurred by victims of such attacks, including surgery and counselling, should be borne by the state. "This is the government's responsibility," she said. "There is impunity from top to bottom, and meanwhile our president takes an entourage to the Hague at taxpayers' expense."

Avaaz and the African Women's Development and Communication Network (Femnet), of which Abdulmelik is a member, plan to picket the ministry of justice and police headquarters in Nairobi on Wednesday, where volunteers will cut the grass in protest at the handling of Liz's case.

The outcry over the fate of the 16-year-old last week prompted Kenya's director of public prosecutions, Keriako Tobiko, to order the arrest of the six suspects and promise an inquiry into police failures. However, the investigating officer in Busia, Shadrack Bundi, said he had received no such directive and could not take any further action.

Rasna Warah, a Kenyan commentator, said women were being failed by the country's leaders, male and female, who often left it to foreign-funded NGOs to raise awareness. "The Busia rape case is symptomatic of our society's attitudes towards women. Violence against women has become so normalised it almost constitutes a sort of 'femicide'."

在肯尼亞西部，葬禮是一件很冗長的事務。天色有些晚了，16歲少女利茲還在外面，因為她去參加她祖父的葬禮，葬禮一直持續(xù)到晚上。在她回家的路上，她在黑暗中突然認出了幾張熟悉卻不怎么友善的面孔。她立刻意識到，面前的這六個男子對她不懷好意。利茲個子很高。起先她試圖逃跑，在他們抓住她后還試圖反擊。年齡大約在16歲到20歲的攻擊者們開始對她拳打腳踢。等到利茲被打得無力反抗后，他們輪流強暴了她。然而這位少女沒有那么容易屈服：她始終在尖叫。

施暴結(jié)束后，他們把女孩拽到附近的一個深坑邊，并把她扔了下去。所幸的是，盡管利茲受傷很重，并從約4米高處摔下，她還是成功地找到了挖坑工人用過的東邊的梯子并爬了出來。在她把受傷的身軀從坑里拖拽出來后，村民順著她的哭叫聲找到了她。

村民迅速組織起了一支小隊追捕嫌犯。女生利茲認識施暴者中的幾個，并開始大喊他們的名字。村民們成功抓到了攻擊者中的三名，把他們押送到了村里的派出所。丁格洛村坐落在肯尼亞西北部的布希亞郡。警察們以襲擊為名逮捕了這三人，并向憤怒的村民們保證這三人會受到懲罰。到了第二天，警察們給三位強奸犯分配了彎刀，俗稱大砍刀，并要求他們在派出所院里除草。接受完所謂的“懲罰”，嫌犯就這樣回家了。

事發(fā)第二天，化名利茲的少女被送往醫(yī)務室，對大部分肯尼亞人來說，這種基本的藥房是最接近診所的東西了。在醫(yī)務室，她被注射了抗生素和撲熱息痛。一周后，利茲發(fā)現(xiàn)自己還是無法下地走路。直到這個時候，她母親才變賣了家里唯一的收入來源——幾只雞，并帶利茲到了最近的城鎮(zhèn)上的門診部。不顧她已經(jīng)失禁的現(xiàn)實，醫(yī)生告訴她她需要接受物理治療。隨著她的病情繼續(xù)加重，她母親把房子作為抵押，以60法郎的價格出租了家里的土地，并把利茲送到了最近的大城市，卡卡梅加。在那里，利茲終于被確診為瘺管，并且脊髓嚴重受傷。

如果不是杰瑞德·摩曼伊大發(fā)雷霆，這一令人震驚的悲劇故事本可能永遠不被外界所獲知。杰瑞德是肯尼亞為所不多的幾家專門治療性暴力受害者的診所負責人，最終利茲就是在他的診所接受了治療。他致電了首都內(nèi)羅畢的國家日報的一位記者。這位記者此前剛剛對埃爾多雷特——一座棲息在東非大裂谷西緣的小城——的基礎設施進行了報道。"這件事使我深受折磨，我必須把它提出來，讓整個世界看到，"杰瑞德說，“這是一場蓄意謀殺，而且這并不是孤立事件，只不過是許多類似事件中的一個�！�

距離1月26日的集體強奸事件三個月，當國家日報的妮里·茹真造訪利茲時，她看到的是一個內(nèi)心和身體都受到巨大損害的輪椅里的女孩。

與此同時，她的襲擊者仍然逍遙法外，這無疑使得這個花季女孩的傷痛更加深重。茹真說：“她無法理解為什么人們總是來對她提出問題，而不去追捕那些施暴者�！�

施暴者中有三名是她附近學校的學生，而在1月27日，警察就已經(jīng)掌握了全部六名襲擊者的名字。當?shù)貓蠹垖�這一事件進行了報道后，警察終于對還在校的施暴者進行了逮捕。其中一所學校的老師甚至問，逮捕可否推遲到嫌犯完成考試之后進行。這一要求被允許了，而警察事后表示他們被老師“蒙騙”了，那些老師實則在幫助學生躲避追捕。

一所當?shù)貎和�保護組織的社工瑪麗·毛卡稱，像利茲這樣的事件是布希亞根深蒂固的沙文主義的產(chǎn)物。布希亞是靠近維多利亞湖的一個貧窮地區(qū)。

她說，一夫多妻制在那里非常普遍，女性不被社會重視。1998年當她剛剛開始接觸強奸受害者時，她發(fā)現(xiàn)對作惡者的懲罰只是對女孩家賠償一只羊或是一袋玉米。

上周，毛卡幫助了一位被20多歲男人性侵的6歲小女孩。她說：“這種事每天都在發(fā)生，只不過往往沒有被報道�！�

毛卡所在組織的一部分資金來源是英國。這個組織不得不掩飾其工作實質(zhì)，謊稱之為“推進農(nóng)村教育，增強經(jīng)濟基礎”，才沒有在當?shù)貍鹘y(tǒng)主義者間引發(fā)仇恨。

她對這次集體強奸進行了調(diào)查，并表示這絕不是一次偶然事件�！袄�茲早前拒絕了其中一名嫌犯追求，對方于是伙同朋友對她進行報復。”

在報上讀到了利茲遭受的折磨后，內(nèi)羅畢的一位婦女權(quán)益運動者奈比拉·阿卜杜梅里聯(lián)合國際運動組織Avaaz啟動了一項網(wǎng)上簽名活動，日前已收到超過66萬個簽名�！皬娂榉冈谕瓿沙�草后逍遙法外，這簡直是世界上對強奸犯最荒唐的懲罰，”她說�！霸诳夏醽営幸环N無聲的傳染病。它不如在剛果或南非的那么受到重視，可是這里的統(tǒng)計數(shù)據(jù)非常的高�！�

肯尼亞高達十分之八的婦女中都在童年時期經(jīng)受過身體上的虐待。肯尼亞國家人權(quán)委員會2006年發(fā)布的一篇報告指出，每30分鐘就有一個女孩或婦女被強暴。

策劃強暴也是針對肯尼亞總統(tǒng)烏呼魯•肯雅塔的一項指控。烏呼魯•肯雅塔在11月12日在國際刑事法院接受了審判，原因是他被指控在2007年頗受爭議的選舉后組織了殺害至少1300人的暴力行為。

阿卜杜梅里寫道，根據(jù)肯尼亞的性侵法案，利茲的攻擊者應該面臨不少于15年的監(jiān)禁。這項法律還規(guī)定，這類攻擊對受害者造成的手術(shù)治療和心理輔導費用應由國家承擔。她說：“這是政府的責任。免受懲罰這一風氣在全國是從上到下的，然而與此同時我們的總統(tǒng)帶著隨從去了海牙，花的還是納稅人的錢�！�

Avaaz組織和阿卜杜梅里所在的非洲婦女發(fā)展和溝通網(wǎng)路計劃在周三包圍內(nèi)羅畢的司法部和警察總局。志愿者將在有關(guān)部門門前割草以抗議對利茲侵犯者的處理手段。

上周對這位16歲少女命運的公眾在抗議終于促使肯尼亞的檢查局長特比克對六名嫌疑犯下達了逮捕令，并承諾會對警察工作的失敗進行調(diào)查。然而，布希亞的調(diào)查官員邦迪表示他沒有收到這樣的指令，無法執(zhí)行進一步行動。

一名肯尼亞評論員拉斯那·瓦拉稱，婦女不受重視是國家領導人所致。這些領導人，無論男女，往往把提高公眾意識的職責推到外資非政府組織上。“布希亞的強奸案是我們整個社會對待婦女態(tài)度的一個縮影。針對婦女的暴力行為變的如此常態(tài)化，甚至已經(jīng)可以構(gòu)成一個新詞——謀殺女人罪�！�