When love hurts: One in four young women in Nairobi face domestic violence

At 17, Zawadi* fell deeply in love with her high school boyfriend and she thought the only way of expressing her love to him was by sleeping with him.

“The first time I had sex, I fell pregnant and my boyfriend disappeared. He did not take responsibility.”

Dejected, Zawadi went back to her mother’s house where she was treated with a lot of disgust.

“I had disappointed my parents because just four years before that, I had made them proud by scoring 388/500 marks in my Kenya Certificate of Primary Education (KCPE) exam. However, I did not have any other option but to stay and depend on them for everything,” she says, balancing tears in her eyes.

Read: When home is no longer safe: The unending horror of intimate partner violence among athletes

Two years after her son’s birth, the ex-boyfriend reappeared, declaring his love for Zawadi and their son. Zawadi did not even think twice about taking him back.

“I was naive and I just wanted to shed off the ‘single-mother’ tag. As soon as he reappeared and promised to take care of us, I moved in with him in Kayole, one of Nairobi’s informal settlements, and once again, I fell pregnant the first time I had sex after two years. I became a mother of two at 19.”

Soon after the delivery of their second child, physical violence began. He once broke her collarbone when their second-born was barely four months old. “That was one of the many horrific injuries inflicted by my then husband,” she says.

Read: Report: Domestic violence rampant in Africa

But she stayed and birthed their third child when she was 21.

“He’d beat me if dinner was late, then take my phone to check for 'male contacts,’” she recounts, her voice trembling. “My brothers were the only men I could speak to. I felt like a prisoner.”

For six years, she hid her bruises, unaware that one in three women in Nairobi shared in her nightmare.

Zawadi’s truth is now quantified in the PMA Agile 2.0 Nairobi Youth Cohort 2024 Survey, released last Thursday at Githurai Youth Empowerment Centre.

The study, led by the International Centre for Reproductive Health Kenya (ICRHK), Kenyatta University, and Johns Hopkins University, exposes a generational crisis. The study tracked 15–24-year-olds across Nairobi’s informal settlements between October and December 2024 and established that one in four partnered young women (28.4 per cent) suffered physical or sexual violence in the past year.

Read: No! Women don’t condone domestic violence

The findings further revealed that economic abuse trapped 23 per cent of young women where their partners stole their wages, blocked their bank access, or denied them money for food. Tech- abuse victims were at 75 per cent, with a majority reporting harassment by intimate partners through device monitoring, hacking, or coerced into sharing passwords.

“These are not just statistics,” declared Mary Thiongo, who leads the data management unit at ICRHK. “They are sisters, daughters, and students whose right to safety is violated daily.”

Despite the unsettling data, over 25 per cent of survivors never sought help; a rate worsening since 2023. Fear and distrust in systems continues to silence victims. 

Read: Shhh... my wife beat me up! When men endure abuse in silence

Data reveals that tech-facilitated abuse surged, affecting 56 per cent of young men and 48 per cent of young women, and perpetrators ranged from partners (75 per cent) to friends (48 per cent). Menstrual stigma, on the other hand, persisted relentlessly, with 84 per cent of girls hiding their periods, skipping school, or feeling ashamed while purchasing pads.

At the launch, youth activists performed skits turning data into human stories such as a girl barred from work by her boyfriend, a student blackmailed with intimate photos. Their message echoed the PI’s rallying cry: “The time for silence is over. The time for action is now.”

*Name changed to protect the identities of girl and her husband.

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