American Man Arrested For Sexually Assaulting Teenage Girls In His Kenyan Orphanage

American man, Gregory Dow, has been arrested for sexually assaulting teenage girls in an orphanage he founded in Bomet, Kenya, US officials say. Dow founded the orphanage with a church's help. The 60-year old is facing charges of sexual abuse of girls at the Dow Family Children's Home in Kapsiratet village. Mr William McSwain, an American attorney, said Dow will face four counts of engaging in illicit sexual conduct in a foreign country.

“From or about October 14, 2013, until on or about September 13, 2014, the defendant engaged in, and attempted to engage in, illicit sexual conduct with four different minor victims in Kenya,” McSwain said during a press briefing at the Lancaster County courthouse.

Once again, this incidence calls into question the vetting process for foreigners getting into Africa, especially if those foreigners are white. In many countries around the world, black people are subjected to very strict vetting in the immigration process while white people just slide by. According to the Lancaster Online, before his travel to Kenya, Mr Dow had been convicted for sex-related crimes in the US and had actually served time, and yet, he was allowed entry into Kenya and allowed to set up an orphanage, putting him in close proximity with his would-be victims. 

Dow is just the latest case of a white person involved in sex-related crimes in an African country. Aside from sex crimes, there have also been racial abuse crimes such as the case of Hinteregger Jurgen in Malawi and Kenya and a fake medicine crime ring in Uganda by Robert Baldwin and Sam Little. In the fake medicine crime ring, Baldwin confessed that he specifically chose to work in developing countries because "they're not as strict", saying, "I chose Uganda because it is a poor country with weak regulation. America and Europe have much stricter laws so you are not as free to treat people because it is so controlled by the FDA. That’s why I work in developing countries.”

By 2015, more than 79 children called Dow's orphanage home. In 2017, Dow fled Kenya and never came back after an arrest warrant was issued against him over claims he was sexually assaulting children under his care. After Dow left the country, his wife tried to flee in September 2017 but was arrested by the police. She was charged with cruelty to children by, among other things, having girls implanted with birth control devices. According to police records, she was released on bond on September 16, 2017. She later fled the country leaving the orphanage behind.

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