Nairobi To Kigali: How East Africas Trio Is Tackling Domestic Violence

Thank God he's gone!

Emily James sighed when her husband left home one morning in November, 2020, never to return. He had abused her for 23 years.

At the time of his disappearance, she had two children. He left her with a Sh10,500 ($79.70) debt in the form of seven-month rent arrears. Yet, she had no means of income. For most of the years, he had been the sole provider as Emily managed the home.

The fresh feeling of freedom was, however, tinged with the fear of being thrown out of the house.

We were in the thick of Covid-19; jobs like laundry work or cleaning and organising ones house for pay, were hard to come by, says Emily who lives in Korogocho slums Nairobi County; in the house where her husband left her and the children.

I was happy he was gone but I was faced with the reality of my children dying of hunger and being locked out of the house. So, I looked for him but couldnt find him.

Across the world, women like Emily are hooked to their abusive marriages because only through them do they find shelter, food, education for their children, and a status; a sense of belonging that they are married.

A worldwide analysis by researchers from McGill University and the World Health Organisation (WHO) published in 2022, established that globally, 27 per cent of women have experienced domestic violence.

While WHO provides data on domestic violence against women, it lacks the global statistics for men.

However, a study published in the in 2014 suggests a 17 per cent global prevalence of domestic violence against men.

The trail follows in Eastern Africa where data on regional prevalence, covers only women.

For instance, McGill University and WHO study only showed that in East Africa, 38 per cent of ever-married or ever-partnered women aged 15 to 49 years, have experienced physical or sexual abuse from their intimate partners.

Nevertheless, in the recent decade, countries in the region like Kenya, have started producing the respective gender disaggregated data through the State statistics agencies.

In 1997, when Emily met her future husband at a greengrocers stall, all she looked forward to was a blissful marriage. Then, she was aged 17.

All her life, she had suffered. She lost her father when she was only five years old. Her mother abandoned her and her two siblings.

Then, her maternal grandmother who raised her at her home in Muranga, central Kenya, terrorised her. As a result, she dropped out of school at Class Three. With no hope in sight, the young Emily who had just turned 13, fled to Nairobi, in search of a better life.

I got into marriage because of love. I desired love and care. I wanted someone to genuinely love me and take good care of me. That image of love and care that Id never experienced soon evolved into a blurred visual of horror, she describes the desires of her heart.

Her husband was then in his early 20s, she says. For three months, they lived happily together. During that time, he unsuccessfully tried to have a child with her. Emily was secretly taking contraceptive pills. She says some woman had introduced her to the pills and encouraged her to take them until she was old enough to have children.

Finally, they had their first child in 2008, and the second in 2012. Anytime he returned home with food, she says, he would scold her for squandering his money.

Hed say my work was just eating, eating and eating, and filling up the latrines. I swallowed all that, she says.

Tired of his constant grumbling, eight months after delivering her first child, she successfully searched for a shop attendant job, earning her Ksh350 ($2.66), daily. She would leave her baby at a day-care after paying Ksh50 ($0.38) for the keep.

It was a taxing job causing her constant back pains. They would stand for long hours from 8am to 4pm. She says her back stiffened up that she would not bend, forcing her to stop working, nine months later. She was back to fully depending on her ever-complaining husband.

Every day, he would return home drunk, beat me up before telling me to cook and watch him eat. He would punch me so hard