NAIROBI, Kenya, Mar 7- Boda boda operators have been put on the spot, again, after a viral video showing a woman being sexually assaulted emerged on Monday.
In the video, the youthful woman who was driving is seen accosted by a rowdy group of rogue boda boda operators.
All this time, she was crying and screaming for help as some rogue riders stripped off her clothes.
It is not yet clear what were the circumstances around the incident and whether it was reported to the police before the video went viral.
The National Police Service headquarters said the incident was is “actively under investigation.”
NPS Spokesperson said already police “have identified some of the perpetrators and they will be presented before a court of law upon completion of investigations.”
Representative of the National Police Service Commission at the Salary Remuneration Commission Wangui Muchiri has called on police to act fast and apprehend those who were involved.
In a Tweet, the former Interior Ministry spokesperson termed the incident as “disturbing and unacceptable.”
Nairobi Governor Anne Kananu expressed her shock, saying “we have failed as a society if such crimes are allowed to go unpunished.”
“I have watched the clip of the boda boda operators harassing a lady at Forest Road. I am horrified to death and I can’t believe the kind of trauma that lady had to go through.”
Previous efforts to streamline the chaotic sector, which employs more than 2 million people, have been futile.
Such efforts have been led by Interior Cabinet Secretary Dr. Fred Matiangi and Ps Karanja Kibicho.
Police statistics show thugs have also resulted in using boda boda’s while executing their evil schemes.
For example, a man was over the weekend killed in Juja by men who were riding a motorcycle. He was shot dead in what now has become a common trend.
Activist Boniface Mwangi, without making reference to the Forest Road incident, said boda boda (operators), “are the biggest threat to national security, worse than terrorism.”
He added that “their everyday recklessness on the road causes accidents that lead to loss of limbs and lives. Some of them are in gangs that rob, maim and even kill. They need to be regulated before it is too late.”
Lobby group Usikimye urged the government to crack down on the rogue operators and restore law and order in the way they operate.
“We have as a country allowed boda bodas to be a law unto themselves. Her screams of terror and fear are telling a story of how we invalidate women,” the lobby group said in a Tweet.
“The fact that the society is okay with sharing this video, redistributing trauma…”
The incident comes a few hours to the World’s International Women’s Day.
There have been increased efforts by state and non-state actors to curb the vice of Sexual and Gender-Based Violence in the country.
Such cases are said to be on the rise during an electioneering period.
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