Why girls live in fear when it rains in Turkana
Turkana residents wait to cross River Anam that links Lokichogio town to Nanam village after it flooded following heavy rains. Young girls in Turkana West are at risk of being married off during rainy seasons.
What you need to know:
- In Turkana, households led by women account for 52.1 per cent, according to the Kenya Integrated Household Budget Survey (2015/16).
- A rights organisation has partnered with the government and locals to fight early marriages.
It was a rainy season and Nanam village in Turkana West was cut off by floodwaters.
Roads were impassable and seasonal rivers were ragingly overflowing.
For Lokedo Loyar*, the rains would change her life forever.
“My mother woke me up in the morning. She told me it’s my wedding day. A bridegroom had already arrived,” she tells Nation.Africa by phone, through a translator.
Lokedo has never been to school, and she does not speak another language besides Turkana.
She also has no recollection of when she was married off or how old she was. All she remembers is that her breasts had not developed.
“I wanted to run away to somewhere very far, but how could I do that [with the floods everywhere]?” she says.
“I cried until I was too weak to cry anymore. So I just accepted my fate.”
She says her husband was youthful. And he died before she delivered her firstborn daughter, whom she believes is five years old. She was later inherited and has two more daughters.
A 2016 report by the United Nations Children's Fund on child marriages showed that at the time, 32 per cent of Turkana women aged between 20 and 49 were married before they reached 18.
In 2016, Turkana County's women-led households accounted for 52.1 per cent of , going by data from the Kenya Integrated Household Budget Survey (2015/16).
To save the girls in unreachable areas, a rights organisation has partnered with the government to capitalise on the power of village anti-child marriage champions.
They are using them to sensitise the community to the ills of the practice. This way, they hope to see parents shield their children from early marriage and send them to school.
“We have trained 280 of them in Turkana West and each of them is expected to reach out to 20 others. And each of the 20 are to do the same,” Walter Mounde, gender and social inclusion officer at Adventist Development and Relief Agency-Kenya, tells Nation.Africa.
He said they train girls and young women aged 15–24, some of whom were forced into marriage before they reached 18.
In seven years, the organisation hopes to have trained at least 24,000 champions in Turkana West.
Mr Mounde said those with lived experiences share their pains and tribulations with the community members to make them understand why it’s urgent to stop finding their children suitors against their wish.
“We don’t just equip them with information on ending child marriage. We realise that financial freedom is also key.
"And so we have helped them start village savings and loan associations so they can start businesses to build their resilience and send their children to school,” he says.
When heavy rains result in flooding and cut off remote villages, girls are at greater risk of being married off, Mr Mounde says.
He recommends the mapping out of flooded areas for establishment of safe houses for girls at risk.
Beatrice Kotola, a probation officer attached to Kakuma Law Courts and part of the partnership, is, however, concerned that the village champions would be compromised or threatened, considering they come from the locality.
“The village champions need the government's support. They need hotlines for calling to report such cases.”
She says the November-December flooding already made it possible for many parents to marry off their girls.
“Many weddings have taken place and many more will with the ongoing rains,” she tells Nation.Africa.
“There is now grass and the cows are getting fat. The parents are looking at their girls and all they see is [reverse] dowry.
“Here, livestock is more important than a girl. A girl can miss for a whole month and nobody will look for her. But if an animal does, everyone will be running around the bush looking for it.”
On November 8, 2023, Ms Kotola had to spend a night in the bush in Leteya, Turkana West, when floods cut off the roads. She had travelled to the remote villages to follow up on the champions.
Other places cut off in Turkana West included Namon, Nanam, Lokipoto, Loreng and Oropoi.
Lokedo, for her part, wants the government to tarmac roads and construct bridges in Turkana to connect villages and facilitate access to girls in need of rescue from child marriages.
“I also want the government to build schools near our homes and give them bursaries. I want all my three daughters to complete school and get good jobs. I want them to build me a house and buy me food.
“I’d have resisted the marriage had my parents sent me to school,” she says.
*Name changed toprotect her identity.
