In 1991, reports emerged on how 71 girls were raped by male students during a night attack in their dormitory.
The incident occurred at St Kizito High School in Meru County which was a mixed boarding school at the time.
19 female students lost their lives during the 'night of dormitory violence' as described by the New York Times Article.
The school was closed for some time with 34 out of the 306 boys who studied in the school arrested.
According to reports in the local dailies, the girls had refused to join in a planned strike after the 'school administration failed to pay the fees necessary for their participation in an interschool athletics competition.
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The angry male students planned to teach the girls a lesson when they cut the electricity supply to the girls' dormitory causing a temporary blackout to carry out the heinous act.
Armed with flashlights and covered in sheets, the boys aged 14-18 picked out girls whom they suspected of having sexual relations with teachers.
It was during the commotion that 19 of the girls were crushed to death while others succumbed when beds collapsed on them.
Francis Machira Apollos, a probation officer who was interview by journalists disclosed that the girls were raped in the tall grass field outside the building where they had gone to seek shelter.
He recounted that while the girls received treatment, they recounted that being raped was part of school life.
"Boys would come into the dormitories take the screaming girls out into the tall grass that surrounded the buildings and raped them.
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"If you are a girl, you take it and hope you don't get pregnant. If girls hadn't died in this, we wouldn't have known about it," he told reporters.
The school was closed following the harrowing incident. and the principal, James Laiboni was quoted by The Kenya Times stating that: "In the past, the boys would scare the girls out of their dormitories and in the process they would get hold of them and drag them to the bush where they would 'do their thing' and the matter would end there, with the students going back to their respective dormitories."
Hilary Ng'Weno, who was at the time editor in chief of The Weekly Review stated that the tragedy underscored the abominable male chauvinism that dominated Kenyan society.
"We treat them (girls) as second-class beings, good only for sexual gratification or burdensome chores. We bring up our boys to have little or no respect for girls," he explained
