WMC Women Under Siege

Facing Both Drought and Pandemic, Teen Girls in Kenya’s Slums Are Forced into Early Marriage to Feed Families

NAIROBI — Winfred* was 16 years old when her parents forced her to get married. Her parents, who lived with her in the Kiambiu slum in Nairobi’s eastlands, had been persuaded by an attractive dowry offer from a suitor three times Winfred’s age — a trader from Nairobi, the country’s capital.

A teen girl at the Teenseed volunteer organization offices in Kiambiu slum on August 21, 2019. (David Njagi)

With two other children to consider, Winfred’s parents accepted. “My parents told me they couldn’t afford to buy food for all of us,” she told Women Under Siege. “They asked me to take pity on the family.” With her dowry, her family would be able to afford food while, they believed, their daughter would live comfortably with her husband.

That was in 2016. A year into her marriage, and two months after giving birth to a baby girl, the husband kicked both Winfred and the child out of the house, claiming he wanted to be alone again. She went back to her parents’ home, but they refused to accept her, insisting she go back to her husband. “They said me and my baby would be an extra burden,” she said.

In her husband’s home, she had been a housewife. Now, at 17 years old, with an infant child and no income of her own, Winfred was alone. Today, she ekes out a living by doing laundry in the same neighborhood where she was raised.

As the pandemic destabilizes Kenya's economy and poverty widens, teenage girls from the country’s slums are being forced by difficult circumstances — and, sometimes, by their kin — into early marriages as a way to support their families with food and other basic needs.

According to 2017 UNICEF data provided by Girls Not Brides— a global partnership of more than 1,300 civil society organizations committed to ending child marriage — four percent of Kenyan girls are married before the age of 15, while 23 percent are married by age 18.

Winny Obure, a gender activist working in Kiambiu slum, said poverty levels in informal settlements are so high that even affording one meal a day is a struggle burdening many poor households, which shelter on average between five to 10 people.

Obure is the co-founder of Teenseed, a grassroots organization that works with adolescent girls and young women in Kiambiu and other slums in Nairobi. It provides leadership skills to teenage girls that keep them safe and in school. But even with such interventions, the high rate of teenage marriage in the slums where, she said, one in five girls is married before the age of 18, is worrying.

“Right now, we have a huge number of girls who are married here,” Obure told Women Under Siege from Kiambiu. “Being married — in most cases, to older men — is a source of income for the girls and their families. It is really sad.”

She said some of the girls who aren’t married off are sometimes forced into the commercial sex trade to afford food for their families and sanitary towels for themselves. But what little money they make, Obure said, is exploitative. Pressured by poverty, the girls take what is offered, even if the money is not enough to meet their needs.

What’s more, climate change is increasing the length of droughts in Kenya, which only aggravates the country’s economic woes. During the March to July crop cycle, farmers usually reap huge harvests from the season’s heavy rainfall. But in the past several years, the rains have been failing, exposing farmers to prolonged drought that lasts for months.

A farmer tends to his crop at his farm in central Kenya on August 9, 2019. Rains have been failing, leading to crop losses and high food prices. (David Njagi)

As most farmers face declining harvests every year, the reliance on rain-fed agriculture has affected food production in the country, said Ali Ramtu, the senior acting director in charge of aeronautical and meteorological services at the Kenya Meteorological Department (KMD).

Consequently, food prices have risen, and with them, the pressure on the urban poor who, in most cases, are the last group to receive supplies from the farms.

The COVID-19 pandemic, caused by the novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2, has only worsened the situation. Not only have the urban poor lost jobs or had their wages slashed, but the amount of farm produce reaching settlements like Kiambiu has been further reduced due to government-mandated restrictions on movement.

The restrictions have particularly hampered the sale of food in informal settlements as open-air traders fear being accused of overcrowding by police, an offense that violates social-distancing rules and carries a prison sentence of up to three years, according to Evans Kana, a member of the Chillers Youth Group, a Nairobi-based grassroots organization advocating for the welfare of people living in slums.

The reduced farm produce that makes it into the city ends up being sold in malls and other high-end food outlets serving richer Kenyans, said Kana.

“People in slums are now being forced to ration money to buy what little food they can get,” said Kana. “The high food prices are straining poor families because they also have to use their savings to buy extra water and soap to protect themselves from being infected.”

“Families, which are mostly supported by women doing menial jobs, are [also] forced to split their little income to buy food, water, and even a toilet,” said Obure. “This hardship sometimes forces them to ‘sell’ their teenage daughters to older and richer men.”

Globally, Kenya ranks 20 among countries with the highest absolute number of child brides, according to UNICEF. In a 2015 report, the agency also projected that Africa could have more than a quarter of a billion child brides by 2050 if current trends held.

Farmers sell their produce at a public market in Kenya on December 2, 2019. Food prices are rising due to heavy farm losses as prolonged droughts and floods worsen. (David Njagi)

The COVID-19 pandemic is worsening this situation, experts say. In an open letter sent to the African Union in April, five international signatories — Girls Not Brides, the African Union Goodwill Ambassador on Ending Child Marriage, the Global Partnership for Education, Plan International, and the Forum for African Women Educationalists — voiced concern that the pandemic could expose girls to child marriage, teenage pregnancies, exploitation, and gender-based violence.

Three UN directors for eastern and southern Africa — from the UN Population Fund, UNICEF, and UN Women — confirmed in June that there were increased reports of sexual and gender-based violence as well as child marriages under the pandemic as communities sunk further into poverty. “In these financially-fragile homes, increases in child labor and sexual exploitation and abuse of women and girls are likely unless prevented,” they wrote in a allAfrica.com guest column.

Additionally, under lockdown, girls cannot access safe spaces like schools where they would be protected and learn about safe sexual and reproductive health. “Our girls are all alone surrounded by criminals and sex predators,” said Mary Najoli, a social worker in Kibera slum, also in Nairobi.

In April, the government set aside Ksh. 10 billion (roughly US $100 million) stimulus package to buy and distribute food to vulnerable communities, including those living in slums. But, said Najoli, “I have not seen any food and money donations promised to families living in slums by the government.”

At a meeting with county executive commissioners held at city hall that same month, Nairobi Metropolitan Services Director General Mohamed Badi told the press that this money was being used to buy food items for slum families like maize and wheat flour, cooking oil, salt and sugar.

“The aim of this stimulus is to prevent families from starving and going out risking the spread of the virus,” he said.

However, Badi did not say whether the government was doing anything about the welfare of the girls living in the slums, much less about any concrete plans to provide them with sanitary towels or a stipend for their personal hygiene.

Neither Badi, Kenya’s Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Services, nor the National Council for Children Services could provide comment on any government plans or initiatives to ensure girls’ safety at this time.

“Girls in slums are being sent out by desperate parents to look for money to buy food because there is no help coming from the government,” said Obure. “They cannot find decent work because there are no jobs, so they end up trading sex for money or entering into short-lived relationships with older and rich men.”

The pressures of worsening drought over recent years, and now the pandemic, have left already-struggling families in Nairobi’s slums destitute and, sadly, forcing young daughters to become providers for their households. Without a thoughtful response from the government, the number of child brides could accelerate sooner than the 2050 projection.


*Winfred's name was changed for her protection.



More articles by Category: Environment, Gender-based violence, Girls, International, Violence against women
More articles by Tag: COVID-19, Child Marriage, Kenya, Africa
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