What population summit means for women's rights

Scenario one: Defiled by a relative at the age of eight, discovering she was HIV positive at the prime of her life at 18, engaging in prostitution, getting pregnant and later becoming a club dancer.

Scenario two: Dropping out of school at Form Two after getting pregnant, chased away from home and ending up in an abusive marriage and a husband doing drugs, engaging in prostitution, being forced at gunpoint to wash a corpse by a ‘client’, and later pushed off a moving vehicle.

The two scenarios summarise the life and times of Mary Clinton* and Patricia Rachel* (not their real names), respectively.

And as the world meets in Nairobi from November 12-14 for the high-level International Conference on Population and Development summit, these two represent the epitome of the grim realities some women face in the search for survival.

The summit is expected to recognise reproductive health rights, women empowerment and gender equality.

I caught up with Mary 24, and Patricia, 30, in Mtwapa, Kilifi county, over the weekend. Their stories of despair, suffering, desperation and need explained the tough options they have had to make in life.

Mary and Patricia, who had dreams of being a lawyer and doctor cut short, are part of a group of women who engage in commercial sex to earn a living.

Mtwapa, known for its vibrant nightlife, just provided them a chance to ‘better’ themselves and make ends meet.

EARLY PREGNANCIES, MARRIAGES

Scenario three: Maureen Kamau*, 18, dropped out of school after pregnancy while in Form Two, chased from her Majengo home, strained relationship between her and her mother, siblings looking down on her.

Scenario four: Rehema Karembo*, 17, waylaid and defiled as she went to school in Kikambala, got pregnant and discontinued school, raising a daughter who calls her ‘dada’ (sister).

Maureen and Rehema represent cases of girls who get early pregnancies and lag behind in education due to giving birth and raising up children, yet they themselves are also children.

Scenario five: Charles Musa*, 10: Abandoned by his mother at a tender age, raised by a grandmother, repeatedly sodomised by a neighbour while he was five years old.

Musa represents the 10-15 per cent cases of sodomy survivors reported at the Gender-Based Violence Recovery Centre at the Coast General Provincial Hospital after he was sodomised at Ziwa La Ng’ombe in 2015 by a neighbour, an incident that totally changed his life.

And while parents believe school is the best and safest place for their children, Vivian Kilonzi (not her real name), learnt otherwise after her three-year-old daughter was defiled by those she entrusted to take her baby to school, barely a week after Marion (the daughter) enrolled in school last year.

Vivian is still fighting a court case involving the driver of a private van contracted by her daughter’s school in Nyali, but she believes the police have the wrong suspects on their hands, while the real culprits who defiled her daughter and assaulted her are still out there.

The mind-boggling cases bring to light the injustices perpetrated against minors who can barely defend themselves.

HOPES ON SUMMIT

The Nairobi Summit, which brings together UN agencies, civil society and governments’ advocacy groups, is organised by the United Nations Population Fund, with Kenya being the host.

In the scenarios that represent real-life cases, their only hope, though with limited knowledge over the summit, is that stakeholders will urgently and fully implement the ICDP programme of action.

This is centred around achieving zero unmet needs for family planning information and services, zero preventable maternal deaths and gender-based violence and zero harmful practices against women and girls.

Apart from engaging in prostitution and being a club dancer, Mary was in a discordant relationship that did not last. The man would not go out of his way to ensure safe delivery of her baby, a situation that forced her to be put at the mercy of doctors, oxygen mask and the surgery knives as she fought to bring forth life.

Her mother died when she was barely a year old. She was taken up by her auntie, who only had boys, while her brother remained with the grandmother.

With the twists and turns in life, Mary at some point contemplated suicide. With an auntie she could not confide in, a drug addict brother behind cells, and cousins who molested her, she felt her life had come to a stop.

That was until, she got the news of her HIV status, an issue she has never disclosed to her remaining relatives, years on. Apart from that, the relatives believe Mary is working as a waitress in Mombasa.

When she started her prenatal clinics at the Mtwapa Health Clinic, she was referred to the International Centre for Reproductive Health centre at the same facility. They helped her in the caesarian section and provided clothes, pampers, cotton wool and counselling sessions that enabled her to get some footing later in life.

“In 2014, after my fourth form examinations, I realised I was positive. All along my stay with my uncaring aunty, I was defiled by my own cousin, in her own house, and she never understood me when I tried to reach out. My 1977-born cousin was shot dead in 2016 over crime. I am bitter because I will never get justice,” Mary said.

She had filed a case that was supported by the Machakos Cathedral, but the sisters were threatened and the children’s court had their hands tied, making her withdraw the case.

“I was sickly on and off, I had STIs. My aunt was busy and never got concerned. I ran away to Mombasa and stayed in a lodging with female friends, where they initiated me into commercial sex and we would at times engage in group sex for money,” Mary said.

When she got an Asian ‘friend’ who introduced her to an Export Processing Zone (EPZ) job, she decided to quit prostitution but was sacked a few months later, which saw her Sh7,000 income go down the drain. She went into club dancing for a living between 2016 and 2017.

With no one to support her, and a slippery baby daddy, after she gave birth in 2018, she turned to menial jobs of washing clothes for people in Mtwapa area, work that she does until now. Her only brother who was a junkie, could not help.

For Patricia, who hails from Nyanza county and has two children, she came to Mombasa in 2011 after she was told there was ‘plenty of money from tourists’.

She thought the best option away from her drug-abusing husband was to try commercial sex.

“My first experience was hard. A friend bought me clothes and introduced me to men. I made Sh1,000 on my first job after having two clients. I realised one has to be aggressive. Normally, I hang around ‘the base’ with our best days being on Fridays, when we call out for customers on the road,” she said.

WASHING A CORPSE

On one fateful night, she recalls, an Asian man parked his car near them and she was picked. After a few trips, she was given Sh5,000 for a job that she had not known, but one that made her stay out of business for one month.

“He took me to Nyali, got to some room and opened a freezer that had the remains of his wife. He ordered me to clean the body, noting that he loved the wife so much and wanted to see her daily. I protested but he pointed a gun at me. I had to do it. I wiped the body with water and cotton wool, and applied make-up, to his taste, then dressed it up,” she said.

After the 2016 incident that took an hour and a half, her client pushed her out of his moving vehicle as he dropped her in Mtwapa. She sustained injuries and was treated.

For Musa, the jailing of the perpetrator to life imprisonment meant a lot for me.

His grandmother Margaret Riungu* said, “Musa’s mother lied to us in 2015 that she was going for a burial in Tanzania, her home country. She never returned, but we heard she was in the Middle East countries and only travelled once to check on her son and daughter.”  

Her son rented a house nearby, and she realised one day after her trip from Loitoktok that her grandson had a bad odour as he and his sister made her hair.

She then demanded that he sits aside but questions lingered in her mind on what had changed.

“I later called Paul* and asked him what the problem is. He confided that the movie guy had been sodomising him. Since I knew the person, I went to his home, though we passed him on the road, and alerted his wife of what the husband had done,” Riungu said.

That night, she asked the perpetrator's wife not to disclose why she was at their house, which also acted as a video hall, due to the number of boys found at the facility.

This was the reason she was able to file a complaint at the Nyali police station that eventually saw the perpetrator arrested, charged and jailed for life.

“Justice Diana Mochache was a fair judge. She gave us justice even in instances we thought we would lose. The perpetrator's family used black magic and threats to intimidate us to withdraw the case, but he is still in,” Riungu said.

It is not all grim, as Rehema and Maureen intend to go back to school next year after several interventions, despite giving birth at tender ages.

“My siblings looked down upon me as a disgrace, and mother encouraged them. It was only my twin who believed in me. I blame my mother for not being there for me, despite being the firstborn, and always being busy, never creating time for me as the firstborn,” Maureen said.

Maureen, who is going back to form three next year, intends to be a role model, specialising in fashion, while Rehema, who will enrol in fourth form, maintains her dream of being a ship waitress, despite the roadside rape ideal that robbed her of her innocence.