When AH’s husband beat her up and broke her leg in their house in Lamu island in 2017, she resolved not to tell a soul.
When she went to hospital, she lied to the doctor that she had fallen down a staircase in her house and sustained the injury.
At the time, she was seven months pregnant. AH says she had nowhere else to go and hoped against hope that it would be the last time her husband hit her.
“I told myself that maybe I had pissed him off in one way or another and so I deserved the beating I got,” she says.
A month later, she was back in hospital after another beating resulted in her losing the eight-month pregnancy.
Still, AH says she blamed herself for it all and even apologised to her husband for losing the pregnancy.
“The doctors suspected that I had been beaten, but I would never tell on my husband. It’s against our culture and religion for a woman to talk about such intimate matters,” she says.
Over the next three years, AH suffered two more miscarriages and two broken ribs following constant physical abuse from her husband.
She left the marriage last year after much persuasion by her sister and mother. This was after it became evident that her husband would likely beat her to death.
AH's case and many others speak of a disturbing cycle of gender-based violence in Lamu that has proved hard to break as the victims, who are mostly women, refuse to pursue justice or walk out of such unions.
In 2017, a young mother of three in Mkomani, Lamu island, was butchered by her husband before her young children after enduring years of physical and emotional abuse.
Neighbours say the woman had lived a life of constant beatings from the husband but could not leave until, finally, her abuser snuffed life out of her.
WHY THEY STAY
Lamu Women Alliance chairperson Raya Famau says at least 10 cases of GBV against women are reported to her office in Lamu island every day.
She says the organisation finds it hard to intervene and help as the majority of the victims would rather die than speak out against the abusers, who are mostly the husbands.
The culture and religion of the region is largely responsible for many women choosing not to report abuse even when their lives are at risk.
Islam forbids a woman from exposing her matrimonial affairs to the public, whether good or bad.
Young girls are taught from an early age the art of protecting the image of their husbands at all cost, leaving a stream of helpless abused women who have literally nowhere or no one to turn to.
Raya says the result has been an alarming number of abuse victims who suffer silently.
“There are more than 10 cases of abuse reported by women being beaten by their spouses in Lamu island. The culture here forbids women from talking about such things and so many die slowly. Girls are told to shut up, obey their husbands and not say a thing,” she adds.
Raya says the community judges women who speak out against abuse harshly and for that reason many stay quiet just to obtain acceptance and be respected when in fact they are suffering.
For some reason, abused women are ashamed to share with other people what they are going through, leaving them carrying a heavy emotional load that with time boils up into stress and depression.
“When they come to report to us, we try to engage them and ask them to pursue legal justice but they refuse and insist on staying in the unions anyway. At that point, there is usually nothing much we can do even though we know, it might possibly not end well,” Raya says.
Another common reason women in Lamu stay in abusive marriages is because the majority are unemployed and fully depend on the man for financial support among others.
Raya says most are afraid of how they will survive on their own without the financial support of their abusive spouses and so choose to stay.
“Most are mothers with young children, and some of these kids are in schools. The woman has no job and therefore no means to support herself and the kids if she left. We had cases where the woman insists on staying with the abuser solely because she can’t make it on her own and it’s sad,” she says.
OVERCOMING GBV
Raya encourages women to learn to speak up to a trusted third party whenever they are undergoing any form of abuse so that they can obtain the necessary help.
She says women must be cognizant of their human, religious and constitutional rights and stand up against anything less.
“Talk to someone you trust. It could be your religious mentor, family member, a doctor who has treated you, organisations like us or the police when it becomes evident that your life is in danger. It doesn’t help your children when you die and leave them to suffer,” Raya says.
“There is no shame in admitting that you are in pain and you are losing it and you feel someone might kill you. It’s not cowardice. It’s actually bravery because you speak for thousands of others in the same situation and you encourage others to do the same,” she adds.
Raya urges women to pursue education and strive to be economically independent so that they don’t have to tolerate abuse just because of financial help.
“Go to school and get an education and then a job or even start a business to support yourself. Let’s embrace a culture of earning our own money so that when things get thick, you are set instead of waiting to be killed because you have nothing.
LESO 'BEATING'
Lamu elder Khaldun Vae says in Islam it's cowardly and shameful for a man to hit a woman and refers to such men as immature and morally deprived individuals.
Vae explains that a woman should only be ‘beaten’ using leso, shawl or a kiss at most.
“The intention is not to hurt but to sweetly express your disapproval over something without having to injure or disrespect her. We don’t use blows and kicks to correct our women and whoever does that doesn’t understand Islam,” Vae says.
He says drugs could be another reason why some men batter their wives in the region.
“People who understand religion would never do that but when one is on drugs, definitely abuse becomes part of their technique to gain control or steal from the household to satisfy their urges,” Vae says.
He says most such cases were reported among young couples who had not taken time to learn the art of marriage and had rushed into it for sexual fantasies.
Vae admits that most young people are meeting on unconventional platforms like social media and do not take time to learn each before marrying.
He says elders in the region have created a WhatsApp group to bring on board as many young people as they can and teach them tips on how they should act in a marriage and what to expect in that setting.
“The levels of indiscipline and outright lack of knowledge on the whole marriage affair among those getting married nowadays is alarming. We still have a lot of groundwork to cover so as to break the cycle of abuse,” Vae said.
Edited by A.N
