•Sarafina, 20, says she lost two pregnancies after being forced into FGM, escaped early marriage
• Girls beg for more security, say they are threatened, community members throw rocks and curse them
The scars and determination of 16 Samburu girls were evident as they narrated the harrowing ordeals they endured to break the shackles of cultural bondage.
Today one is studying mathematics in college, another is taking a pharmacy course.
Shy at first, Sarafina, 20, vividly recounts losing her mother, getting pregnant as a teenager, miscarrying and surviving the cut.
She joined the Samburu Girls Foundation in 2013 after completing her primary education. Her mother died in 2003 when she was five.
"No one offered to help me get into primary school. I used to go to the schools myself and talk to headteachers to enrol me," she said. She was speaking on Friday at Nairobi's Fairmont Hotel during a forum on problems faced by girls.
"I have studied in almost all schools in Samburu because I do not have a permanent home," she Sarafina said.
She would move from one relative to another but never felt welcome.
"Because no one cared about me or advised me, I fell for a man who told me that he loved me," she recounted.
She was just 14 when she got pregnant, later losing the baby three days before her final primary education examinations.
"My relatives said all sorts of things about me and this made the trauma worse after I had lost my mother," she said.
They also accused her of trying to abort the child.
Sarafina stayed at the hospital for three days and did not receive any counselling to help her cope.
"I remember the nurse handing the dead foetus to me and sarcastically asking me to hold it," she wept.
Sarafina said her father and stepmother forced her to undergo FGM.
"They arranged for me to undergo the cut with my younger sisters," she said.
Despite her ordeals, Sarafina was resolute. She struggled to ensure she realised her dreams.
She is enrolled at the Catholic University of East Africa pursuing a Bachelor's of Science in Mathematics.
Sarafina is not alone at the centre. Her friend Maria narrated how she unsuccessfully sought refuge at her aunt's home to escape the cut and early marriage.
Maria's parents had resolved to marry her off immediately after her primary education.
"My mother was against early marriage but had no problem with the cut," she said.
"But my uncle, who was a bit learned, rescued me on the morning of the cut and took me to the centre."
Maria, who is the first born, said he has since rescued five girls from the cut and being married off early.
She did her final secondary education and enrolled for a Pharmacy Course at Moi University.
"I want to go back and empower my community and family after I am done with school," she said.
The girls told the Star that women in the Samburu community have no say and await orders from elders who cannot be opposed because it is considered a taboo.
"People in the community are afraid of curses from the elders if they go against cultural practices," Maria said.
Joy, another woman who escaped the cut and early marriage, said she was raised by a struggling single mother.
In 2011 when she was in Class 6, her uncle arranged for her marriage to an older man.
"He was 65 years old and I was going to be his third wife," she said.
Joy, who was initially unaware of the marriage plans, said her dowry negotiations began after she arrived home for the April holidays.
"I had to undergo the cut before getting married. They had planned to send me to his home the day after the cut."
But she was rescued the next day and taken to the home where she has stayed since.
The girls are appealing for more security at the centre due to threats from some parents and the men they were to marry.
"Sometimes we go to fetch firewood and some community members throw rocks at us and insult us because they say we have gone against the community," Joy said.
The girls said, however, that their dreams supersede the cultural practices that robbed them of their childhood.