Orphaned at 8, HIV-positive at 12: Nairobi teenage mother fights to raise three children
Ezzie*, an HIV-positive teenage mother living in Korogocho, Nairobi, carries one of her three children.
What you need to know:
- Orphaned young, forced from school and living with HIV, Ezzie battles against poverty while raising three children.
- The teenage mother's journey through loss, exploitation and hunger reveals resilience despite overwhelming daily challenges.
At 19, Ezzie* sits in her tiny rented room in Korogocho, Nairobi, watching over three young children whose lives depend entirely on her. The eldest is four years old. The younger two—twins—are just a year and seven months old.
Outside, the sounds of the informal settlement drift through the iron-sheet walls. Inside, the young mother counts the day's earnings from washing clothes and cleaning utensils in other people's homes, hoping the money will be enough for food, rent, and diapers.
Yet her story began long before motherhood arrived. “My mum and dad died when I was eight years old, while I was in Class Two,” she says, her voice cracking as she fights back tears.
Their deaths shattered her childhood. After losing both parents, she was moved from one relative to another. Each new home offered temporary shelter but little stability. As the years passed, she increasingly felt unwanted.
“I have been tossed from one aunt and uncle to another. Everyone saying I have become too much of a burden to them,” she recalls, her voice heavy with the weight of a childhood spent searching for a place to belong.
The instability soon affected her education. She dropped out of school in Class Five after relatives said they could no longer afford the essentials she needed or pay the charges required at the public primary school she attended in Korogocho.
The maternal aunt she was staying with told her that she was now old enough to contribute to the household, she says. Ezzie says the aunt insisted she could not continue living there without helping to pay rent and buy food.
To survive, she began collecting bottles for sale. Sometimes she found work in local eateries, serving customers and washing utensils for Sh200. She shared part of the money with her aunt in exchange for a roof over her head, while the remainder went towards her daily essentials.
Instead of spending her days in a classroom, she spent them searching for ways to earn enough to secure food, shelter, and a place to call home.
Hiv positive at 12
Then, at just 12 years old, she met a man whose promise of care and protection quickly gave way to exploitation. He left her pregnant and infected with HIV.
At 13, Ezzie delivered her first child. For another year, she remained at her aunt's home, caring for her baby while trying to navigate motherhood as a child herself. But eventually, her aunt told her she had to leave and find a place of her own.
With few options, she rented a small house in Korogocho for Sh1,000 a month. At 14, she was a child raising a child. “I had rent and electricity to pay. My baby was also crying for food. I had no means. I desperately needed money,” she recalls, the anguish of those days still evident in her voice.
Desperation pushed her into another relationship with a man who claimed he could help her. The assistance came with conditions. “He told me I had to sleep with him first,” she says.
The relationship resulted in a second pregnancy. It was during antenatal visits for that pregnancy that she learned she was living with HIV. “When I was told I had tested positive for pregnancy and HIV, my whole body weakened. For a while, I could not feel myself or the world around me,” she recalls.
The diagnosis felt like yet another burden added to an already overwhelming life. She remembers breaking down repeatedly, struggling to understand why tragedy seemed to follow her.
“I cried, cried and cried asking myself why my parents died so soon. If they were alive, this couldn't be happening to me,” she says. “I have a child whom I cannot provide for and now another one and the double burden of HIV. Why?”
Eventually, she says, she accepted her status and resolved to keep going. With few opportunities available and mounting responsibilities, she turned to commercial sex work to support herself and her growing family.
The twins
Then came another shock. Four months later, during an ultrasound scan, she discovered she was not carrying one baby but two. “I cried and laughed at the same time,” she says.
At one point, she considered ending the pregnancy. “I tried to abort but the babies just refused to be aborted and so I decided to carry them to term,” she says.
As the pregnancy progressed, her financial struggles deepened. Unable to keep up with rent payments, she was locked out of her house. For months, she slept in makeshift stalls while heavily pregnant. “Since I could not raise the rent and was locked out of the house, I slept in the makeshift stalls until the eighth month,” she says.
During that difficult period, one neighbour stepped in to help. The neighbour took care of her older daughter and even paid the child's kindergarten expenses.
Another lifeline came in the form of a woman she calls as a Good Samaritan. The woman gave her a place to stay in a mabati house without charging rent. She also offered her work as a waitress and utensils cleaner, paying her Sh200 for every day worked.
“For every coin I got, I stretched it. I saved some and used some to buy essentials for my twins.,” she says.
In November 2024, Ezzie delivered healthy twins at a faith-based health facility. The Good Samaritan paid her hospital bills and continued supporting her after delivery.
For six months, the woman helped provide food and diapers for the babies, giving the young mother room to recover and plan her next steps.
Eventually, however, she had to stand on her own again. After moving out, she rented a house costing Sh2,000 a month and returned to searching for work.
Today, she survives through mobile domestic jobs. She washes utensils, cleans houses, and does laundry whenever customers call. “You can wash utensils and get paid Sh50, or laundry and someone gives you Sh250 or Sh300. It depends on the customer,” she says.
On rare occasions, she earns slightly more. “There are those who can pay you Sh500 or Sh1,000 when you do the cleaning of the house and laundry, but those are rare to come,” she says
Despite the hardships, another challenge continues to threaten her well-being.
Hope
Ezzie receives antiretroviral medication from a local government health centre, but taking the medicine consistently is not always possible. Food insecurity often forces her to choose between hunger and treatment. “Sometimes I don't take them because I don't have food,” she says.
The side effects become difficult to endure when she swallows the medication on an empty stomach. “I grow so weak, struck by hot flushes, dizzy and vomiting. Yet I am still breastfeeding,” she says.
Yet amid the hardship, she hopes her experience can serve as encouragement to others confronting similar circumstances. “I am certain there is a girl somewhere enduring what I went through, with no one to offer her hope. If my story can give her even a measure of hope, then it will have been worthwhile,” she says.
*Name changed to protect identity.
