Activists have raised concerns over increasing cases of incest in families during the coronavirus pandemic period.

According to Rwanda’s Gender Monitoring office, the prolonged closure of schools and restrictions on movements have increased risks of young girls s being abused by their relatives.

However, most victims, parents and guardians are still reluctant to report the vice to authorities to pave the way for action against perpetrators.

Oliver Nyinawumuntu (not her real name) has a sad look when she tells her story. She looks at her four-year-old daughter seated next to her. Mother and daughter have 16 years between them.

"This is my daughter, but at the same time, she is my sister because the father to the child is also my biological father," said Ms Nyinawumuntu.

She told Rwanda Today that she was at home one day in 2016 while in her senior two, when her father, then a loader at the Nyabugogo market came home early.

"He silently entered my room and grabbed me into his chest claiming to be missing me a lot and wanted to hug me but all that was a trick to get me on the bed. My father defiled me."

From then on, Ms Nyinawumuntu started shying away from his mother and after two months she started vomiting and become very weak, forcing her mother to take her to the hospitals for the check-up. She was found to be two months pregnant.

After finding that she was pregnant the daughter remained tight-lipped and refused to report his father because he had threatened to kill her if she ever told anyone on him.

She said though they did not report the incest to the police, when the father realised that the daughter was pregnant he dispersed and never returned home up to date.

Rwanda Today has learnt that there are so many such cases in the country though they are rarely reported.

The rising cases of incest have forced civil society to call for strengthened actions, especially in this time of the pandemic where all children are at home as countries battle the pandemic.

Rwanda’s Gender Monitoring office noted that close to seven months of school closures and movement restrictions have given space for biological relatives to easily abuse girls.

“We don’t know why incest cases are not reported yet it has been discovered that they account for a big number of rape, defilement and other related abuses on girls,” said chief gender monitor Rose Rwabuhihi.

“Though there has not been any local research to determine why fathers, uncles, brothers and cousins, engage in sexual relations with relatives, incest cases are rampant in almost all parts of the country,” said Ms Rwabuhihi.

“Many survivors of incest are associated with severe psychological symptoms and physical injuries. For example, survivors of father-daughter incest are more likely to report feeling depressed or psychologically injured than those of other types of child abuse,” says Rwabuhihi.

Ancile Nibigira,programmes manager at Rwanda Women’s Network (RWN), said more than any other type of child abuse, incest is associated with secrecy, betrayal, powerlessness, guilt, conflicted loyalty, fear of reprisal, and self-blame or shame.

“It is of little surprise then that only below 20 per cent of incest cases are reported in Rwanda but mainly are due to the culture that highly values secrecy, which makes it hard for young children suffering incest abuse to report,” said Ms Nibigira.

Ms Nibigira expressed disappointment that fathers in the country are increasingly preying on their daughters with some even impregnating them.

The other problem is that even the cases reported the concerned organs like Rwanda Investigations Bureau (RIB), police and the prosecution do not categorize them.