LYDIA WANJIRU ON HOW FAMILY CONSPIRED TO COVER UP SEXUAL ASSAULT

Kenyan content creator Lydia Wanjiru has come forward to share a harrowing experience from her childhood, accusing a close family member of sexual assault and said that her entire family conspired to cover up the incident to protect their reputation.

Speaking in an interview, Wanjiru revealed that the abuse occurred in 2007 during the chaos of the Post-Election Violence. While the world remembers that period for political turmoil, Wanjiru states that the year marks something far more personal and traumatic.

According to Wanjiru, her uncle, a doctor who was working in Eldoret at the time, fled the violence in the Rift Valley with his family and sought refuge in Nakuru. It was that night, while she was preparing his house, the assault took place.

“When people remember post-election violence, I remember something different because that is the year my uncle sexually assaulted me,” Wanjiru shared.

Perhaps most devastating, Wanjiru alleges that upon discovering the incident, her family chose to silence her. She claims they conspired to hide the crime to protect the family’s name and, specifically, to ensure her uncle’s wife would not leave him. 

Following the loss of her mother in 2002, she was raised by relatives under circumstances she has previously described as akin to being a “house girl,” where she was treated differently from her cousins . The trauma of the assault and the family cover-up eventually led her to leave home immediately after completing her secondary education.