- Adhiambo says that life has been hard for her raising her 20-month-old son who requires close monitoring and special care.
- She now wants help to have her son’s father compelled to help in taking care of the child.
Image: KNA
As the world continues to mark 16 days of activism against Gender-Based Violence, Joyce Adhiambo Otieno is finding it rough trying to cope with the dual challenge of being disabled and caring for her sick son.
While many associate GBV with physical and sexual assault, Adhiambo believes that the psychological trauma of rejection from a person she thought loved her, only to vanish in her hour of need, is the worst.
Adhiambo narrated the experience she has undergone since her father's child walked out of her life after she announced her two-month pregnancy.
She says that all was well, until the day she opened up to him that she was expecting a baby.
“The man walked out on me and switched his phone off,” she said.
Feeling dejected, Adhiambo thought that going to her parent's home in Alego, Siaya, would be the best option. She was wrong.
“I was told that I could not stay with my mother while expectant as it was against tradition,” she said.
“I had to look for a house to rent and wait for the delivery time.”
Adhiambo had to find means to pay rent and buy food. Due to her disability, she had to undergo a Caesarian Section during birth.
The delivery, though expected to bring joy to the parents, marked another chapter of misery for her.
As a single mother with a disability who eked a living from plaiting hair, she could no longer work as the wound would not allow her to stand for long.
Neither could she engage in hawking which was her previous source of livelihood.
After months of struggling, Adhiambo was engaged as a housemaid.
She stayed on for three months and left when the employer refused to pay her.
All through, she says, the baby would cry persistently over unknown ailments and when she later landed an M-Pesa attendant job, her new employer encouraged her to take the child to the hospital.
“It is here that the boy was found to be suffering from sickle cell,” she said.
While trying to come to terms with the medical report, her boss informed her that her employment was over and she had to return home and concentrate on caring for her sickly son.
Adhiambo says that life has been hard for her raising her 20-month-old son who requires close monitoring and special care.
“Raising a sickle cell child is a tall order as the child requires special attention and diet,” she says.
She now wants help to have her son’s father compelled to help in taking care of the child.
Bondo subcounty assistant county commissioner Michael Too urged Adhiambo to report to relevant government offices so that she could be assisted in, among others, tracing the child’s father.
Too said that the government, through medical experts, has ways of ascertaining whether he is the biological father and if proven, he would be made to bear responsibility for the child's upkeep.
County reproductive health coordinator Dominic Omollo decried rising cases of gender-based violence, expressing concern that most incidents do not see the light either because of ignorance or the guardians being compromised.
Nyimine Empowerment Community-based Organisation executive director Lorna Nyandat lamented the high number of young girls who are getting married.
Nyandat said that 33 per cent of young girls aged between 15 to 18 years in the county get married off due to several factors.
She said that at this age, the girls are not knowledgeable about their sexual and reproductive health and rights and hence face many challenges that include gender-based violence in their marriages.