A 16-year-old girl who gave birth and secretly buried the infant in a shallow grave causing dogs to dig up and eat it has been committed to a borstal institution in Malindi for three years.

A Borstal is a type of youth detention centre that are run by Prison Service and were intended to reform young people.

She committed the offence on September 11, 2019, at Bandari village in Ganze Sub County, where she delivered and killed the newborn infant before she buried it.

The court was told that on a fateful day, the teenager who had been pregnant without the knowledge of her parents gave birth and secretly took the infant to a bush where she buried it in a shallow grave but the infant’s body was later dug out and eaten by dogs.

Area assistant chief Charo Hinzano who was informed of the incident by local residents reported the matter to the police who arrested and took offender to Kilifi police station where she was taken for medical tests at the Kilifi referral hospital before being arraigned in the children’s court.

The court heard that the girl dropped out of secondary school in the second term after her enrolment in Form One as the pregnancy developed forcing her to spend most of her time indoors at home.

She denied the charges when she first appeared in court on September 16, 2019 but later changed her plea to guilty though she told the court in mitigation that she had delivered a stillbirth and decided to bury it without the knowledge of her parents since her boyfriend had declined to take responsibility of the baby.

The accused’s father told the court that due to his illness, he could not pay the required school fees forcing his daughter to drop out but clarified he was not aware of the pregnancy.

His irritated wife said she was angered by her daughter’s action and asked the court to take the necessary action by law.

Kilifi Resident Magistrate Sifuna Daniel Sitati committed the teenage girl to serve her sentence at Kakae Girls Borstal institution in Malindi Sub County.

KNA by Harrison Yeri and Diana Athman