•The 33-year-old teacher was kicked out of her matrimonial home because she had been circumcised.
•She had lived with her abusive husband for nine years in Konza, Kajiado county
Image: FILE
A traumatised Kajiado woman yesterday narrated how her husband battered her and eventually kicked her out of their matrimonial home because "I could not satisfy him sexually as I am circumcised".
The woman - a teacher, whose name cannot be disclosed - said she is depressed because the issue has weighed her down “morally and mentally”.
She says her story is weird, but she wants to tell the world what some Maasai women undergo after they are circumcised.
“Very many women are traumatised because of this FGM. Look at me now. I have left my matrimonial home (in 2015) because of it. The man had given out cows to my parents and we had a traditional wedding,” she said.
Trouble started in April 2014, when her husband came home at night and told her he was tired of living with a circumcised woman. “He said my private parts had been interfered with to the extent I cannot satisfy him in bed,” the 33-year-old mother of two said amid sobs.
“One day he spit in my private parts and said he has got a young woman who is uncircumcised, and who has all a man wants.”
She was married off to the man, who was then 43 years after her Form 4 studies. She was then 22 years old.
“When he married me, he was aware that I had undergone FGM. I gave birth to two children and nine years later, he behaved as if he did not know I was circumcised.”
The teacher at an academy said she had excused the husband when he spat in her private parts because he appeared drunk.
But he beat her repeatedly and when she reported the matter to her parents-in-law, they turned a deaf ear.
“One day he came home drunk and told me to leave his house and leave my two children with him. When I asked why, he took out a knife and told me if I ask more questions, he would enlarge my private parts with the knife,” the woman.
She husband said he wanted to bring a Kamba woman home. She left her matrimonial home in January 2015.
Two years later, she was told that her husband and his new wife were not taking her children to school. Friends advised her to seek help from International Federation of Women Lawyers (Fida).
In August last year, she was given custody of her children and enrolled them in a Kitengela school. She her earnings on their fees and rent.
Asked why she took her too long to tell her story, the teacher said she feared making her story public for fear the man would follow and kill her.
She showed the Star some threatening message she received from her husband and which she later handed over to Kitengela police station.
“He was arrested and stayed in custody for one day. His parents came to plead with me to withdraw the case and I did that because I did not want more trouble from the man,” she said.
She said she has received reports that her co-wife has also left after persuading the husband to sell part of the 32-acre family land.
The woman said she will never go back to her abusive husband despite her economic challenges.