Shocking sexual abuses by aid workers in Africa

A 21-year-old United States citizen, Matthew Lane Durham, was brought to justice on Monday.

On that day, a court sentenced him to 40 years in prison for sexually assaulting orphaned children while on a missionary trip in Kenya in 2014.

Durham, who is from Oklahoma, was a volunteer with the Upendo Children’s Home in Nairobi between April and June 2014. The court found him guilty on four counts of engaging in illicit sexual conduct in foreign places and ruled that apart from the jail term he would pay his victims $15,862 in restitution.

Prosecutors said Durham raped three girls aged 5, 9 and 15 at least eight times and that he molested a 12-year-old boy twice.

“Durham, not only forcefully sexually abused these children, but psychologically damaged them by taking advantage of their trust he received from the children,” they added.

Durbam’s case has joined the increasing number of sexual abuse incidents involving foreign aid workers who take advantage of the vulnerable children they are meant to protect.

Here are some other cases:

A British Airways pilot

British Airways pilot, Simon Wood, 54, sexually abused girls aged between the ages of five and 13, while he was in Africa for flight stopovers and charity work between 2003 and 2013.

According to one of the victim’s mothers, Wood would groom the children with gifts before giving them baths.

The sexual abuses took place at hotels, schools and orphanages across Uganda, Tanzania and Kenya.

Woods was charged with one count of possessing indecent pictures of a minor, two counts of producing indecent pictures of minors and one count of indecent assault of a minor.

He was due to appear in court in August 2003. However, he died when he was hit by a train 11 days before the court appearance. His death was believed to be a suicide.

The families of some of the abused victims had maintained that the airline should bear the legal responsibility, since Wood was employed and engaged in work representing the airline at the time. British Airways paid an undisclosed sum of money.

The school teacher

A former public school teacher and United Kingdom charity organisation boss, Simon Harris, 55, was jailed for more than 17 years and four months by a UK court for abusing street children between 1996 and 2013 in a small town in Kenya’s Rift Valley.

In February, 2015 a court said Harris would lure vulnerable young boys to his opulent home with offers of food, money and the promise of education. He then subjected them to terrifying and humiliating sexual abuse.

Judge Philip Parker said the little Kenyan victims were left used, degraded, and humiliated. The mental scars would almost certainly never heal.