Dad arrested for sexual abuse of 10-year-old daughter (Las Vegas, Nevada)

Dad KALUNGA DAMAS KANYELA has been arrested for sexually abusing his 10-year-old daughter. I'm not buying Daddy's cultural relativism argument. If it's okay for a father to "touch" his daughter back in Africa, then why did he immediately try to cover up what he did, by shoving the little girl away when the mother found them? He knew what he was doing was wrong, at least in the United States. You get points for creativity, though.

http://www.fox5vegas.com/news/24032122/detail.html

Police: Father Booked For Sexual Abuse
Mother Of Three Girls Told Police Abuse Common In Africa

POSTED: 10:22 pm PDT June 24, 2010
UPDATED: 11:21 pm PDT June 24, 2010

LAS VEGAS -- A Somalian immigrant told police he didn’t think it was wrong to touch his daughters because it is allowed in Africa, a Las Vegas Metro Police report said.

Police arrested Kalunga Damas Kanyela, 38, after his wife, Kyanda Manda, 35, said she walked into the family’s living room June 11 to find her husband sexually abusing their 10-year-old daughter.

She said her husband saw her and pushed their daughter off of him, the report said.

When Manda asked her daughter what happened, the girl said her father had touched her vagina and he had forced her to have sex with him on other occasions, the report said.

When Manda confronted her husband, he begged her not to tell anyone and promised he would never do it again, the woman told police.

She then called a friend, and asked them to call police.

Manda told police she suspected something inappropriate was happening because Kanyela had molested their three daughters when they lived in Africa, the report said. She also told police this form of abuse is common in Africa and that it has happened at least five times before.

A forensic interview with the girl backed up the mother’s story and revealed other forced sex acts between the father and daughter, the report said.

Interviews with the girl’s older sister, 16, and younger sister, 6, revealed that their father had also sexually abused them, but in Africa, the report said.

In the report, Kanyela denied touching his daughters inappropriately, but said he touched the 10-year-old girl on her stomach and chest. He said he did not know it was wrong to do in America because it is OK in Africa, the report said.

He said he would write a letter of apology to his daughters, but then later said he could not do it, the report said. Kanyela said he would write a letter to the court in reference to what he did, the report said.

Because no one in the family spoke English, a Swahili translator was called in to assist police, the report said.

The family had moved to the United States in 2009, the report said.

Kanyela was charged with one gross misdemeanor count of open or gross lewdness, three felony counts of sexual assault with a minor under 14 years of age and three felony counts of lewdness with a child under the age of 14.

Kanyela is in Clark County Detention Center awaiting his preliminary hearing July 21.