From paralegal to mother: The woman who adopts Mombasa’s wounded warriors
Gender-Based Violence Recovery Centre’s full-time paralegal Agnes Karanja (right) with Julie* at the Coast General Teaching and Referral Hospital on December 6, 2024.
What you need to know:
- In Mombasa, 14-year-old Julie, a sexual assault survivor who is now pregnant, dreams of becoming a lawyer despite her trauma.
- Agnes Karanja, a paralegal, has taken Julie into her home alongside six other children, providing her with safety, education, and emotional support.
- As Julie prepares to testify against her 24-year-old attacker in court, Agnes faces threats from the perpetrator's family but remains determined to pursue justice.
On a bench, partially shaded from Mombasa’s oppressive mid-day sun by an awning, 14-year-old Julie* reveals her future career aspirations.
“I wanted to be a lawyer,” she says, gazing out over the grounds of the Coast General Teaching and Referral Hospital on Mombasa Island – the Indian Ocean distantly visible to her right.
Julie, whose name Nation.Africa has changed for privacy reasons, struggled to answer the question at first. It was only when she was asked what she aspired to “before” that she revealed her hopes. “In Kenya, many people are now corrupt,” she said. “I wanted to be a lawyer so that I can help the Kenyans to be equal and fair.”
Julie is soft-spoken, with a shy demeanour and seemingly reticent to talk at times, but her words come quickly when she explains her reasoning for aspiring to the law. Her tears come even faster when she is asked if she’s currently working towards that goal.
She hurriedly wipes them away before dropping her hands onto her lap, near her belly. Her loose white shirt hides a bump; Julie is pregnant – that is the “before”. “I was defiled,” she says.
The assault happened in her building, when Julie was home alone, living on the other side of the country from her mentally disabled mother back in Kakamega County, and being cared for by a physically disabled guardian. (Julie’s father left the family when she was little). Her guardian’s work schedule meant Julie was always by herself in the morning; the perpetrator was her 24-year-old neighbour, she says.
“When I was going to the toilet, he knew I was in the toilet, so he came and defiled me,” she says softly.
On the lawn behind her, 49 other young women listen to music and eat. Julie is attending an event for teenage mothers at the Gender-Based Violence and Recovery Centre at the hospital – all, like Julie, had been defiled and cared for at the centre. Organisers say the group represented just “a few” of the cases the centre had dealt with – the ones who were able to make it that day.
According to data from the Kenya Demographic and Health Survey, Kenya’s recorded adolescent pregnancy rate has been falling over the past decades, from over 20 per cent of girls aged 15–19 having children in 1993, to just shy of 15 per cent in 2022 – the most recent available survey year.
Mombasa County itself reported the highest decrease in teenage pregnancies in 2023, among all 47 counties, according to Mvita coordinator for gender-based violence Itai Farah. But hidden within that positive trend and the decreasing numbers for reported instances are cases like Julie’s – girls whose lives have been derailed by sexual violence.
As the recovery centre’s full-time paralegal, Agnes Karanja handles many of those cases. She first met Julie in a professional capacity, when the 14-year-old’s guardian brought her to the centre following the assault, the case turned personal for Agnes.
“The child was so withdrawn,” says Agnes about her initial meeting with Julie, adding that when the teenager and her guardian first came, they were “traumatised”.
The guardian was discouraged, said Agnes, raising a child while disabled and then, despite her best efforts to give her a bright future, “by the end of the day, she became pregnant.”
When it was decided an abortion was medically not the best option for Julie, the relationship broke down. Julie says her home life became difficult, with her guardian constantly questioning if the defilement had even happened.
Feeling ashamed, the guardian also began to try and keep Julie – who was having a hard time in school with her peers due to the pregnancy – indoors and at home, said Agnes, adding Julie was advised “not to go out, not to talk to anyone. And the house they live in, there’s no TV, no radio”.
“That’s how I decided to take her to my place, because I have younger girls at my house,” said Agnes, who has a daughter the same age as Julie’s. (Both girls attended the event to help and were attached at the hip, helping Agnes with organising.)
The arrangement was originally intended to be temporary, just for the holidays, says Agnes. A short respite from the place where the assault happened; where neighbours and everyone knew about the defilement. But when Agnes saw a drastic change in Julie’s demeanour, she started to consider making the arrangement more permanent.
“When she came here, I was shocked. She became lively, she was laughing, jumping here and there,” she says.
Julie agreed to keep attending school, if she could stay with Agnes, who has since taken over paying for her school fees and transport. She sends Julie to school each day by boda boda, to ensure her safety on the now longer commute – it costs her Sh200 per day.
“I’m a good student,” says Julie. Her most recent grade was a “B-”. “But I still want to work hard to get an A,” she adds.
Julie says she enjoys studying but admits the change in how her peers treated her once they learned of the pregnancy has made her hate school. “Other pupils left me alone and nobody was talking to me in the school,” she says, her eyes downcast.
History of taking in children in need
“As a community, as a person, we have to do something to help some of these children,” Agnes says.
Julie is the third child from the recovery centre Agnes has personally taken in. She’s currently raising seven children: four her biological ones and the rest, children of her relatives’ from rural areas whom she has taken in.
“I have a passion for community work, a lot of it,” says Agnes, adding that children like Julie have a future, despite the adversary they face.
About Julie, specifically, she says, “She’s bright. Very bright. And if she’s not taken care of, her life will be lost – it will have no meaning.”
Agnes, though, has no doubts that Julie will one day work in the legal field. She will be a lawyer, said Agnes.
“You can imagine, maybe, we are able to pull some strings and take care of her – some years to come: a lawyer. A whole lawyer who is taking care of herself and taking care of this community; taking care of society.”
Threats from accused perpetrators
Agnes says the satisfaction she feels seeing the young women she works with make progress and rebuild their lives, following assaults, motivates her to continue her work, despite the personal costs.
“The kind of work I do involves a lot of risk,” she says, “because we keep on arresting people – arresting perpetrators. Some of them, we come from the same community – their neighbours.”
Often, she says, perpetrators will want to settle things informally and will try to pressure her to stop the court process, like the family of the accused man in Julie’s case.
“The parents of the perpetrator, they’ve come to my place to persuade me so that we withdraw the case, but it won’t happen. The case will take its due course,” says Agnes, who is hoping she can find a pro bono lawyer for Julie and receive some help covering her school fees.
Julie is set to testify in court against the accused next month. She says she’s nervous about it, but wants there to be justice. When asked if she hopes the man goes to prison, she replies “yes,” softly, like a prayer.
Julie says the reason that she will speak about the assault is to help build her confidence for court. “I want to make myself free,” says Julie. “When the day comes to go to court, I can stand without being scared.”
*Name of the minor has been changed to protect her identity.
