At 4am in July 2018, Maureen Nindo received a phone call from her ex-husband warning her that she would be responsible should he harm their two children.
Maureen, who was working as a househelp after leaving a violent marriage, panicked. The next day she set off to see her children.
“He [ex-husband] seemed happy to see me and welcomed me so warmly. Though he had remarried, he pleaded with me to stay for two nights before leaving.
"He never meant for me to leave," Maureen told the Star at her house in Mathare .
“On the last night when I was going to bid his family farewell, he followed me. He wielded a panga in his hand and had death in his eyes," she said.
He slashed her head and arms as she was running away before losing consciousness.
“Though I saw death, my greatest fear was losing my two children whom he had threatened,” Maureen said.
She lost one eye, two fingers and nearly lost her two children.
Her former husband, Joseph Owino, was arraigned but never went to jail. He promised the court he would take care of Maureen and their two children and pay all the medical bills. He never did.
Three years later, Owino walks free, having broken his oath in exchange for freedom.
“After his release, I called to ask him for money to treat my only eye. He asked me to stop stressing him and said only foolish women get mistreated like I was,” she narrated.
When she agreed to marry at age 15, Maureen had only one goal, to help her poor family.
It was a bad move, one that made her life more miserable and forced her to depend more on her family.
It was break time and Maureen, now a school cleaner in Mathare, stood near the kitchen, watching pupils running around.
“When I was their age, I wasn’t running around like that. I was helping fend for my family after the death of my father. Soon after, I was giving birth and taking care of my family,” she said, tears slipping from her right eye.
In 2004, Maureen was staying with her family and siblings in Mathare when she met her future husband. He was seven years older than her.
They moved in together and soon she became pregnant with their first child, to her husband's disappointment.
"He started pushing me to abort the pregnancy but I was scared of death having heard harrowing stories of victims, so I said no. That was the beginning of the violence," she said.
Maureen blamed herself for the pregnancy and believed her husband's accusations that she had been irresponsible.
The mother of two said she had nowhere to run and felt responsible for her siblings, as the firstborn.
“I decided I would tolerate his violence. Afterall, I had nowhere to go if I left him and he knew that too," she said.
She gave birth and two years later, she gave birth to their second child. The first child died from injuries after falling into a pot of boiling tea.
“They were playing on the bed when the elder one fell into the pot and pulled the younger one. The younger one sustained severe injuries but the elder one succumbed. One the day he died, I gave birth to my third child,” she explained.
Afterward, Maureen and her family decided to relocate to her husband's village. She thought the violence would recede.
“Nothing changed, and when I reported to his mother, she blamed me for angering her son and asserted that women must be beaten,” she narrated.
When she had had enough, Maureen left in 2017 to become a househelp for a family in Kisumu.
“I kept in touch and would send him money since I had left him with the children. One day at 4am, he phoned saying should he do anything to the children, I would have only myself to blame," she said.
Upon her return, her former husband, who had remarried, gave her his blessings to leave after two nights.
“On the second night, he asked me to prepare dinner since it would be the last. He sat next to me talking for hours before cornering me as I started to leave for his mother’s house,” she said.
She was admitted to Russia Hospital in Kisumu for a month. Her left eye had to be removed.
“My life changed completely. I can no longer do housework, my body especially my eyes, constantly ache. I earn Sh3,000 and pay Sh2,000 rent, that leaves me with just Sh1,000 to cater for all our needs," she said.
Today, Maureen looks at her scars, her stitched-up eye and disfigured arm and considers the marriage that almost cost her life.
“He doesn’t support our children or me as he had promised in court. I hope justice will one day be served,” she said.
(Edited by Bilha Makokha)