I lost my baby to Violence.....

By Judy Waguma

She lays exhausted on her hospital bed;oblivious of her surrounding-ward 17, at the provincial Hospital, Kisumu. She is alone in this big room.

Shortly the tea lady has arrives. Chai Chai, kuja Chukua chai! (Tea Tea Tea) but she just lays there. The tea lady moves on to the next ward. A Good Samaritan sympathizes with this girl and rushes to get her the tea.

She takes a deep breath, not interested in the tea either.“It was Thursday morning,” she says, almost like a whisper. I was at the displaced camp in Naivasha.

“A bus had just come to take us home, and I was overjoyed as I knew I was going to join my family again”.

Susan Akinyi says that she collected the little household goods she salvaged during the post election violence and was ready to go.

In her joy, the 17 year old stood holding her protruding belly, softly she whispered to her unborn baby, with a broad smile on her face, ‘home at last’

She says that the journey back to Kisumu began early.

In the bus, she sat staring out of the window, Susan could be heard humming a song, her joy profound, and even the rough road seemed like nothing.

All over sudden, her face hardens. She keeps quiet, closes her eyes and with renewed strength she continues to say, “I felt a sharp pain in my stomach, then another, then another”

She says that she panicked, and did not know what to do, since this was her first pregnancy.

“I tried so hard to hold it, I couldn’t, it was becoming unbearable, and then I started to scream, that made me feel a little better, at least it would get my mind off the pain,” she says.

In the bus, she says, a lady came to her rescue. The lady took her to the back seat and put her to lie on her back.

Her water broke, all she could feel was wetness. Unaware of what to do, she diligently relied on this lady to help her.

“The lady, told me that she had been through this before and could help me, she asked me no to worry or be scared”

To her amazement, the lady wore black rubber shoes, pressed on her buttocks, and prodded her to push.

I pushed, and pushed, and pushed, until we could see the baby’s head, she says.

Meanwhile the bus was moving, probably to get her to the nearest hospital as soon as possible.

With abated breath, Susan says that she was drained. “I was so tired, I could not push anymore, but we were lucky as I was rushed to Pap Onditi hospital”

However as they got to the hospital, the doctors there could not help the young girl; they did not have equipments to deal with her state and therefore referred her to the Provincial Hospital.

The baby could not move, and from the pain, she passed out.

At the provincial hospital, Dr Paul Mitei says that Susan had had an obstructed labour, the fetus was dead.

“She had also gotten infections, and therefore we had to remove the baby through cesarean section,” says Dr Mitei.

A week later, says Mitei, Susan developed more complications; she had severe pain in her stomach.

We had to take her back to theatre since she had sepsis, says Mitei. Sepsis is a medical condition characterized by a whole-body inflammatory state caused by infection.

Sepsis is broadly defined as the presence of various pus-forming and other pathogenic organisms, or their toxins, in the blood or tissues, says Mitei.

Susan’s condition had now worsened and Mitei says that they had to take her for surgery to remove the pus. In the process they also discovered that the upper part of her Uterus had been destroyed and so it had to be removed.

She was in danger of getting Fistula, but we have been able to save her. The doctors at the hospital had to maintain her for 14 days where she was under drugs and she was being monitored on her condition every day, says Dr Mitei.

The saddest part however is that Susan will never conceive again, she only has her lower uterus left.
But she is not moved by that.

“I knew that I would not come back after the second surgery, but I am alive. I don’t care that I cannot deliver anymore, because I never want to go through that pain ever again,” she says.

Sineno....

By Judy Waguma


Sineno has a round, smooth face. Her complexion is chocolate and her smile infectious.
The jolly girl greets us candidly as we enter the rescue center. She is lively, and speaks fluent Kiswahili.

The young girl looks in perfect condition and happy, oblivious of all the troubles she went through. Sineno is not just any other child. She has been robbed of her innocence. She was raped and now lives with the agony of seeing her perpetrator every single day.

Sineno, 11, comes from Taveta district, where she lives with her single mother and three siblings. At the age of nine, a man she knew only as a neighbor, attacked her and defiled her in a nearby thicket on her way home from school.

The little girl finds it hard to talk about the experience. Her face has changed. The former bubbly child has been transformed into a pouting and not-so-friendly person. She is fidgeting with her clothes as tears well in her eyes. The memory is unbearable.

“He grabbed me, pulled me into the thicket and defiled me,” she recalls. The 50-year-old man, after finishing his dastardly act, left her unconscious in the thicket, not caring whether she was still alive or not. The only thing Sineno says she remembers is that the man threatened to kill her and her family if she told anyone about what had happened.

But she couldn’t care less; she was in too much pain. When she gained consciousness she stood up and walked slowly home. Her mother was livid with rage. Her first step was to report the matter to police, and the man was arrested. She then rushed her daughter to Coast General Hospital, but the medical staff could not handle her case. Her genitals were badly damaged. “Coast General Hospital referred me to Nairobi Women’s Hospital, where I was admitted for a week,” the little girl recalls.

Sineno has now recovered, but she constantly gets rashes and pain in her genitals. She does not know what the problem could be, but she has to be taken to hospital each time the rashes occur. She says her attacker’s case is pending in court. He was released on bond, but still goes to court for hearings. “However, he has threatened that if we do not withdraw the case, the whole family will perish, and that’s why I was brought to the rescue center,” she adds.

Joseph Okwino, the home’s director, says the girl has made tremendous progress. When she was brought to the center, where she has been living since, she could not stand seeing men. “The young girl would set out for school, but would not reach there, say that someone had threatened her on the way,” he points out.

“She would come back with so many excuses, until we figured out what the problem was and put her through a counseling session.”

Sineno is not alone; there are other defiled young girls at the centre. Nine-year-old
Rachael was left to take care of her siblings as the mother went to fend for them as a sex worker, says Okwino.
That night, Rachael says, a neighbor came calling in the pretext that he was looking for her mother. It is at this point that he attacked her. She is till in pain as she struggles to forget the day. She, too, contracted a sexually transmitted disease and has to seek medical attention every so often.
The centre is home to 14 other girls, each with a different problem. Initially, says Okwino, the place was meant for physically abused girls. But today, it receives all manner of cases, ranging from sexual abuse to domestic issues. It also houses teenage mothers.

But Okwino says the center is a temporary shelter, as the girls stay for some time as they get medical attention or counseling before rejoining their families. It is also home to girls whom, the administration, feels are at risk in their own homes. An example is Sineno who is still being threatened by her attacker. Action Aid brings in the children, gives them support by taking them to hospital, he explains. They are provided with food and medicine as well.

He explains that in the area, defilement is rampant. “We also girls who have been defiled by their fathers, strangers and other people known to them. “At the moment, we have a girl who was defiled by her father and she conceived,” Okwino adds.

“We took her in, and now she has gone back to school, we take care of her.”