“I want to go back to school”

(Marsabit) Halima doesn’t look up during the interview, nervously twisting her traditional satin dress while trying to suppress her tears.

The 13-year-old girl responds in a quiet voice without paying attention to the comings and goings of a 2-year-old child with black hair, who is her daughter.

The Kenyan woman, who lives in a village accessible by dirt roads on the outskirts of Marsabit, in the north of the country, was forcibly “married” at the turn of the decade to a man in his forties.

Rather than ask her parents’ permission, he kidnapped her, leaving the family with a fait accompli to obtain formal permission to marry her.

Halima initially believed that her husband would watch over her by providing her with food in this semi-arid area marked in recent years by a wave of devastating droughts. But the man didn’t care and expected to be served. “He didn’t give me anything,” she confides.

When she became pregnant, he abandoned her without further formality.

His parents filed a police report, but the case was unsuccessful. The man was released after being briefly detained and now lives in a village neighboring Halima.

“I don’t want to see him. He scares me,” confides the teenager, who survives with the help of her family.

She would like to go back to school, even talks about the possibility of becoming a doctor, but in the same breath emphasizes that there is “no one else to take care of her child”.

Diramu could have suffered a similar fate a few years ago, but her uncle quickly managed to track down her captor and was able to bring her home before it was too late.

The 13-year-old orphan, who lost her mother in 2022, today depends on the support of the uncle in question. Daily life is difficult, since he “has nothing” and has to feed several other children.

She hopes to be able to continue her studies to become a teacher, but nothing is assured.

“I’ve known her since she was little. If her uncle tries to marry her off too early, she will refuse,” underlines Jane Jilloh, who heads an organization promoting the professional reintegration of women in need through the use of crafts.

Bahati Dida didn’t have the luxury of saying no when her parents told her at the age of 15 that she would soon be married to a man 20 years her senior.

The man, says the Kenyan, now 23, deceived her family and did nothing to help them, forcing her to take on menial jobs as a servant to try to stay afloat.

When she became pregnant, the young woman had no choice but to go ahead with the pregnancy, as abortion was unthinkable.

Abandoned by her husband, whom she never saw again, Bahati today raises her young son in difficult conditions.

She also would ideally like to return to school, but has difficulty reconciling the pursuit of her studies with her maternal responsibilities and is instead thinking of opening a small business.

“Men are bad people,” says the young woman, who suffered at a young age, like most of the victims of early marriage interviewed by The Pressgenital mutilation supposed to ensure his “purity”.

“Deeply rooted” practices

Although they have been banned for decades and have declined significantly nationally, they persist in many parts of Kenya. This is particularly the case in Marsabit County, where certain pastoralist communities impose them on all girls, taking advantage of the inability of local authorities to enforce the laws.

Anna Maria Denge, who is responsible for social services in the region, notes that the use of early marriage and genital mutilation is “deeply rooted” and reflects stubborn prejudices.

“The leaders are men who think that women should be seen, not heard,” underlines the government representative.

Significant awareness-raising efforts are being carried out directly in communities to change mentalities, but much remains to be done, underlines M^me Denge, who describes Marsabit as one of the most problematic counties in the country in this regard.

The most recent government data indicates that nearly 90% of girls living there undergo genital mutilation. Between 50 and 60% are married early.

In 2021 alone, more than 3,000 early married girls who became pregnant before the age of 18 were recorded in health service centers.

“We need a lot of resources to make change, but resources are limited […] The government’s capacity to invest is limited,” notes the manager.

Hakule Dida, one of the elders of the village where The Press met several teenage victims of forced marriage, stresses that their situation “breaks her heart”.

The area, she says, has been devastated by drought, economically weakening many families who see these early unions as a way of obtaining a dowry that could help them get out of trouble or reduce the number of children to feed.

“But there is so much poverty currently that people often have nothing to offer as a dowry,” emphasizes M.^me Dida.

Girls are sometimes sent alone to work in neighboring towns and become pregnant after being attacked, prompting their parents to marry them off as quickly as possible.

M^me Jilloh laments that a “very limited” fraction of the abuses that occur in the county are addressed by authorities.

She does not hesitate to draw on her own resources to help the most vulnerable and is currently paying the school fees of three children “saved” from early marriages.

“I already have five children of my own. They sometimes complain that I bring other children to the house, but they understand the importance of what I do,” she says.