MV* (not her real name) has been to hell and back. Herlife in the past six months has been nothing short of a script from a horrormovie.
In June MV, 41, was drugged, gang-raped and left fordead in Nairobi, where she had just arrived to take up a house help’s job.
“Waliniharibu (they destroyed me),” shesays amid sobs. The criminals not only raped her but also sodomised her.
“I don’t understand how all this would happen tome. Am I a child of a lesser god?”
I meet MV at the Médecins Sans Frontiers (DoctorsWithout Borders) medical facility in Mathare slums, where she has been receivingtreatment.
Our interview is pensive, frequently interrupted byemotional breakdowns. I finally muster the courage to ask her what happened,after several reassurances that her identity will not be revealed.
“It was in June when I received a call from a friend[name withheld], who told me she got a house help job for me in Nairobi.Excited, I borrowed fare and boarded the next bus to Nairobi,” MV narrates.
When she alighted at Afya Centre, she called the woman,who showed up after a few hours, took her phone and promised to come back withher would-be employer.
LEFT FOR DEAD
Minutes turned into hours and soon it was dusk. Notknowing what to do, MV sat on a stone next to the bus stop, still hoping thatthe woman would show up.
“There was a woman selling jackets next to me and whenI asked her if she could give me a place to spend the night, she dismissed me,calling me a prostitute,” MV says.
Stranded, with no money to go back home or a place tospend the night, she held to the elusive hope that her ‘friend’ would show up.
Around midnight, three hooded men approachedher. “One of them wore black gloves. He put his gloved hands on my faceand the next time I woke up, I was lying next to a river, writhing in pain andin bloodied clothes,” MV says.
“Before I fully regained consciousness, I could hearthem say, ‘Huyu hawezi amka tena, amekufa’ [this one can’t wake up,she is dead].”
She lay there until dawn, when she finally mustered alittle strength to call for help.
“The first two women dismissed me as a criminal andleft. But luckily, another one showed up and took me to Kamukunji policestation,” she says.
Police officers at the gender desk were very kind toher. They quickly called an ambulance and referred her to MSF clinic inMathare, a move she describes as the reason she is still alive today.
At MSF, she was first given food and freshclothes. “They then put me on medication to prevent HIV infection,pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases,” MV says.
After two and a half months of treatment and counselling,attempts to reintegrate her back to the society (her home village) in Septemberdid not bear fruit because it is the same time that she lost her son, 21, in aroad accident.
In October, the woman who lived with her and her son inthe village after she broke up with her baby daddy kicked her out.
“She told me she was tolerating me because of thefunds she was receiving from my son’s sponsor [a good Samaritan] abroad. Thisbroke me because I was not only mourning my son but had also become homeless,”MV says.
MV decided to call her baby daddy, who sent her busfare to his place, only for his wife to show up two days later.
“I didn’t know he had remarried. When his wife showedup he pretended not to know me and accused me of spiking his drink in order tohave sex with him. He beat me up very badly, a neighbour had to intervene,” shesays.
Desperate and without a home, she painstakingly setoff for Nairobi to the only facility she knew she could get help from, MSF.
SODOMISED BY GANG OF FIVE
Daniel* left home for Thailand in October last year,hoping for a better life, only to come back with no money and scars of sexualabuse.
To buy an air ticket, he sold all his household itemsand borrowed Sh50,000 from a family friend. But he ended up in a traffickingcamp.
“Unfortunately, I did not reach Thailand. They holedus up in a dilapidated camp in Mynamar and subjected us to very little ornothing to eat,” he says.
When Daniel, who identifies as queer, demanded to betaken back to Kenya, the camp supervisors slapped him with a $4,000 (Sh517,000)fee they claimed they had paid his agent back in Kenya.
“They threatened to kill us and throw our bodies intoa river if we did not pay that cash,” he says.
Stranded, he was given the choice of death or sextingold white women with the aim of luring them to some Chinese scammers.
“I chose to survive. The goal was to make them trustus with their financial details and once they gained our trust, we would handover their details to the scammers, who would steal their cash,” he says.
“From the proceeds, they would pay us and if we didnot meet the targets, they would physically assault us and threaten to killus.”
With time, Daniel saved $3,500 (Sh452,375) and got hispassport back. He then used the savings to pay for his freedom.
But before he left, one of the four Kenyans he waswith told the supervisors that he was queer and that’s when all hell brokeloose.
“At night, when I was just about to go to bed, five ofthem came into my room. They pulled down my pair of trousers and boxers andgang-raped me,” Daniel says. “It was a horrific ordeal that left me exposed tomany illnesses.”
The fear that he could be exposed to HIV and STIsadded to the physical trauma he experienced.
Luckily for him, all the camp victims were rescued andtaken to a military camp. The International Organisation for Migration wouldlater pay for their tickets back to Kenya.
“Due to the physical and emotional trauma Iexperienced, I was referred to an MSF facility in Mathare.”
Because he visited the facility more than 72 hoursafter the assault happened, he was tested for HIV and was given a Hepatitis Binjection and some antibiotics to prevent STIs. He was then counselled andplaced in a shelter
In the past year, between November last year andOctober, MSF treated 3,725 survivors of sexual and gender-based violence.
The organisation treats an average of 310 survivorsper month, which is 10 survivors of sexual and gender-based violence per dayand one survivor every two hours.
“Six in every 10 sexual violence survivors whoreceived care in MSF-supported facilities knew their perpetrator, who waseither a family member or a close person. Others were unknown attackers,” theorganisation says in a report.
More than 50 per cent of SGBV cases are referred bythe police, a clear indication that many people are not aware that SGBV is amedical emergency.
Over the past year, a quarter of survivors of sexualviolence treated at the facilities in Eastlands did not seek medical carewithin the critical 72-hour window.
This hinders emergency care for the prevention ofunwanted pregnancies and diseases such HIV and other sexually transmittedinfections, MSF says.
“This is because people are only aware that SGBV is acrime,” says Emmanuel Makau, a nurse at MSF facility in Mathare.
“While there is nothing wrong with reporting to thepolice, we would like them to know that the 72-hour window is very importantbecause of the medical significance.
“If survivors present to the hospital first, they canget medication to prevent HIV, pregnancy or STIs.”
HANDLING SGBV EMERGENCY
Makau says when an SGBV patient enters a medicalfacility for emergency care, he or she is first taken to the triage. Here,medics pick up emergencies, such as bleeding or physical injuries, and provide clothingor even food.
The patient is then referred to a psychologist, whotries to get the patient to open up on what happened.
Thereafter, they are referred to a clinician or nursefor examination and treatment.
If it is within the first 72 hours, they are givenpost-exposure prophylaxis (Pep) to prevent HIV. They are also givencontraceptives to prevent pregnancies. This can be given even within 120 hoursof reporting.
Antibiotics are also administered to prevent STIs,such as gonorrhea or chlamydia.
“Luckily for MV when she was first gang-raped, she wasreferred to the facility within 72 hours and we were able to administer allthese treatments,” Makau says.
After examination and treatment, a survivor is givenmedical legal documents to present to the police to begin the search forjustice.
Naaman Oyugi, a psychologist with MSF, says while itis important to visit a health facility immediately after suffering sexualviolence, all is not lost for survivors who are checked later.
“Most survivors of SGBV go through shame and guilt.The counseling helps to ground them and explain to them why they feel thatway,” he says.
Oyugi says intensive counseling starts after one week,and the duration depends on how a patient responds.
“We teach them how to handle the difficult emotionsand ways of coping with the incidents,” he says.
While sexual violence — rape, defilement, childpornography — are criminal offences under the Sexual Offences Act, 2006, manyKenyans are not aware that SGBV is a medical emergency.
“It is high time the government and other partnerssensitised the public on the need to visit a medical facility first in case ofa sexual offence,” Makau says.
“This will help prevent the spread of HIV, unwantedpregnancies and STIs.”
Provided by SyndiGate Media Inc. (Syndigate.info).
