This past weekend I had an opportunity to visit the Kajiado Adventist rehabilitation centre for girls. Its a primary school essentially put in place to help rehabilitate girls, most of whom are from the Maasai community, that have been rescued from early marriages, as well as female genital mutilation.
Some of these girls are shockingly young. Meet *Mary for example. She is a lovely young girl with such a beautiful smile, with a missing tooth on her front lower jaw. One thing that strikes you the first time you meet Mary is her acute shyness. It is rather expected, considering she is only 11 years old.
Mary has been at the centre for only a month after she was rescued from a potential marriage to an 80-year old man, as a fourth wife. The girl is younger than his first and second family grandchildren, but since this man has enough cattle to offer as dowry, why not? Either way, according to the Maasai culture, for as long as the girl’s father deems his daughter old enough to be married off to a willing husband, he has every right do exactly that.
It utterly breaks my heart, just listening to their stories. Some have been repeatedly abused by their ‘so-called’ husbands, since they are not sexually mature enough to be wives. Most of these girls have been circumcised, as it comes along with tradition, a barbaric practice that the government has been unable to successfully stamp out.
Building these girls’ self esteem is an overwhelming task. They have been hurt beyond what most people can imagine. Some are in constant fear of their fathers and husbands coming for them and by force returning them to their marital homes. The centre however, with the help of The Newlife SDA church Nairobi and other donors from Germany, is really trying to protect more of these girls. Helping them begin to respect themselves, to understand that they is so much ahead of them, and that no one, absolutely no one has a right to forcefully marry off girls their age to men older than their grandparents, or any man thereof.
Spending time at Kajiado has really provoked me, at how much we have shut our eyes and ears to communities that continue to demin their girls, just because they are girls! Its a shame! More people need to come out and raise voices of reason against these practices. We cannot keep saying that the girl child is getting too much attention, while within the same borders, practices like theses are still rife.
Join me among others to make the plight of these girls known.
