- WIMA said they have been doing sensitisation to reduce the injustices and ensure girls go back to school after getting pregnant.
- They said people used to prefer the Kangaroo courts for fear of going to the police.
Image: ALPHONCE GARI
A Malindi teenage girl has revealed the challenges of being a mother and a student in a family that is struggling to survive due to the high poverty levels.
Josephine Garama* (not her real name) who is 14-years-old and currently in Standard 6 in one of the schools in Malindi, says life has been tough and even getting a place to sleep is difficult.
Further, the girl who is being raised by a single mother said even beddings for her and the child is a major challenge and they are forced to sleep on rugs.
Two years ago, Garama driven by poverty, engaged in sexual relationship with a young man in the locality to get some cash for survival, only to learn months later that she got pregnant.
At first, she quit school but luckily, her plight was heard by gender-based violence activists from Women on the Move Against GBV who offered her psychological support, counselling and advised her to keep the pregnancy and would go back to school after giving birth.
Garama lives with her siblings and her single mother in small rental house which they are yet to pay for and now the owner is demanding for rent which the family says it cannot afford.
When we visited the family at their home, we found her in school uniform carrying her child.
Women on the Move Against GBV have been on the forefront of ensuring that they campaign against the cases and support victims get justice and those who got pregnant continue with their education after giving birth.
Garama’s plight touched the GBV activists and they enlisted her as one of the needy cases which helped her get a grant.
She said WIMA in partnership with the Centre for Rights Education and Wareness Kenya gave her a Sh10,000 grant which she used to open a kiosk where she sells vegetables and other items.
The money she said, helped her get food for her family and also support her child who she leaves with her mother while she goes to school.
“I was given Sh10,000 and the money is helping my child, siblings and I. We opened a kiosk and sell potatoes, chapati, beans and vegetables,” she said.
She however noted that housing is still an issue for her family.
Not far away from her village, another woman is also living in agony after her daughter was defiled by an elderly man while she had gone to work.
Janet Sulubu would leave her daughter under the care of her grandmother to go and look for odd jobs like washing clothes in Malindi town to fend for the family.
On the material day, Sulubu said she came home from work and found the daughter coming out of the elderly man’s house.
The girl later complained of pains from her private parts and upon confronting him the man denied it.
Luckily for her, she reported the matter to the village elder and later to the police who took her to the hospital for examinations and later connected her to WIMA community champion.
The suspect disappeared upon learning that police were pursuing him.
Normally, such cases would be solved by Kangaroo courts and the suspect would walk scot-free making it hard for the victims to get justice.
However in this case, they laid a trap and told a relative of the suspect to come and resolve the case at the village elder unknown to him that police would come for him right at the Kangaroo court.
The case is still going on and Sulubu is optimistic that justice would prevail soon so that the suspect is punished.
She was also lucky to get a grant from WIMA of Sh10,000 which she used to open a vegetables selling business that earns her a living.
Sulubu lauds WIMA community champions for their help saying were it not for them, the case wouldn’t have reached the police station and court as it is now.
Elizabeth Kalinga Community Champion WIMA organisation partnering with CREAW who helped the teenage girl return to school after getting pregnant, said they have been doing sensitisation to reduce the injustices and ensure girls go back to school after getting pregnant.
“In this village early pregnancy cases are high and the major cause is high poverty levels, idle youth who dropped out of school and have no jobs, in some cases, some parents are not responsible,” she said.
Kalinga said there are so many single mothers who work for the Arabs doing odd jobs which are challenging as they are not able to take care of their girls well.
Through their sensitisation, she said they have formed groups that are now able to be used as platforms to sensitise them, particularly those with young adolescent girls.
Dorothy Mwakwari Community Champion WIMA said their efforts have managed to end Kangaroo courts which were rampant in Malindi subcounty.
She said people used to prefer the Kangaroo courts for fear of going to the police.
-Edited by SKanyara