Isolated Single Mothers of Northern Kenya

Girls in most parts of the world are very vulnerable to exploitations and discrimination.  In pastoralist families such vulnerabilities are worse due to sociocultural norms.  A good number of pastoralist girls are exploited, abused and discriminated against.  The patriarchal communities in these arid and semi-arid areas are deeply rooted in practicing female genital mutilation, marrying off girls from as young as ten years of age and ensuring that girls and women neither have decision making power nor the ability to own assets.  Girls and women are also treated more harshly than boys and men when a perceived violation of cultural practices happen.

The menace of sexual exploitation and early pregnancies is something that is silently eating away our innocent pastoralist girls.  Among my community who lives in Marsabit County of Northern Kenya in East Africa, when a girl gets pregnant out of wedlock or before marriage even if it’s a rape case, her lifetime trauma has just started.  Girls are normally given the responsibility of looking after their parents’ animals just like boys/young men. They take the animals far from home daily and return in the evening after sunset. Sometimes they go to satellite camps/move very far away from home in search of water and pasture during severe drought which happens almost throughout the year. They stay there for months in the company of men-young and old. During such times the safety of such girls is compromised, they are subject to serious health risks and threatened by violence and defilement. Most of the early pregnancy cases happen during such times. A huge number of these girls are under eighteen years so whatever was done happened without their consent.  Those that look after animals from home are also faced by challenges of early pregnancies because they spend out the whole day with men who are not family members but mostly neighbors.

Once pregnant the affected girls hide their pregnancies but most don’t even know that they are expectant until the changes in their bodies become noticeable.  When community members find out a girl is pregnant, she is just asked the man responsible for her predicament. After that preparation to isolate her is undertaken. Her family members just mourn her, for them she is now dead, totally gone. She ceases to be part of that family and that village immediately. Some fathers used to stab such girls long before but now they are just chased away. If she is lucky enough a small house is built for her in the outskirts of their village and she will be receiving support from her mother, very minimal though.  Nobody wants to listen to her side of story, even if they do it never helps. Girls also never talk about what really happened or talk about rape/ defilement with their family members. You just hear about the young girl being defiled after everything has already gone wrong and the girl isolated.

The story of the man responsible for her pregnancy is different. He is cleansed and totally accepted back in the community. Some rituals are done to cleanse him. He is allowed to marry any other girl and mingle the way he wants with other community members. He only has problems accessing community sacred places but his kids/generation can have access to any place. Traditionally sons are more valued than girls. So nobody even questions him after the cleansing. 

 Such girls remain to be ashamed and isolated forever even as they grow into women. Their views and concerns are not heard.  They are just labelled and everybody in the community will know about that. They are just given a name, a name which is just like a curse by itself. A name which will be used to refer to all her generation, everything that has a link to her womb. A name that will be used to deny her and her generation access to community events, places (like sacred one), community love and support.  

In addition to neglect and rejection by their family/community members these girls also face poverty, abuse, depression, trauma, diseases like HIV, frequent pregnancies due to some opting to be used by men and very few positive options for life. They also lack status and power in their community and place of residence.

A number of advocacies have been done against the practice. It is helping bit by bit because those girls can now stay around their community members unlike before. They also get support from developmental organizations, well-wishers and other support institutions. Some of those in town centers have got the opportunity to be trained on income generating activities, some who are now grown up women have formed groups that have benefited them through direct funding to groups by some organizations and some are harvesting animal salt for sale.  Despite all this there are others who are still anguishing in shame, pain and a lot of unfulfilled needs. Their main agony is the name they are given.