Unveiling gender based violence in kenya

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NADIA Nadia is a 24-year lady who enjoyed a really great childhood. Her father was one of the wealthiest people in her area which guaranteed her and her siblings a good life. She had always dreamt of becoming a pilot engineer and all indicators were that this was a dream she would be able to achieve. Her family was not only able to afford it but she also had the brains to go on with it. Her grades in school were very good. However as fate would have it, all this crumbled one day when her father lost all his property due to a bad deal. They were reduced from riches to rags. They had to move from the big house they had and from private to public schools. Eventually she and her siblings had to drop out of school. By this time Nadia was in form 2 and just about 16 years old. For Nadia all her big dreams were shattered. Her family could not make ends meet thus forcing her to look for odd jobs here and there to be able to survive. She started off by working at a clothes making industry in Mombasa. She did this for some time but the conditions were quite poor and challenging, forcing her to quit. In 2002, one of her friends introduced her to sex work. The friend started by taking her to Mtwapa, Mombasa during the weekends when business was at its peak to enable her master the trade. Slowly by slowly she got absorbed into the trade and is a sex worker to date. Nadia and her friends used to solicit in groups for clients in the streets. One day in 2002, as she was out in the streets with her friends, a vehicle pulled by and the driver who was white skinned singled out Nadia .He wondered loudly why a young girl like her was out in the streets doing sex work. He asked her to accompany him. She was aged 17 at the time. Being picked by a white skinned client is considered a “kill” and most sex workers usually yearn for this. Her friends encouraged her to go since it could be her lucky night. The man took her to his cottage of which the location she cannot clearly remember, but was somewhere around Mtwapa. They drove into his compound and got into his house. When they entered the room Nadia got scared and her immediate instinct was to run. There were a lot of weird things all over the room. Her first thought was that the man was a magician. He had a pot which was boiling, 3 stones, clown masks, wigs, red sheets and many other things that Nadia does not want to recall. The place was simply spooky. The man led her to a bedroom and left her there for a while as he went out (of the bedroom) and came back with a big stick. He told her to undress. Nadia was so afraid .All she wanted was to go home. Then suddenly the man started caning her with the stick he was carrying. Her cries and pleas for him to stop fell on deaf ears. He continued beating her then stripped her naked, threw her on the bed and sodomized her. He did not use a condom. What happened next shall forever be arched in Nadia’s memory. It was all like a bad dream. When the man was done he called out a name and through the door a huge black snake came slithering towards Nadia. It kept advancing towards her. It got to her and onto the bed and started licking Nadia all over her body at the man’s command. She was frozen in fear. When the snake was through it slithered back the same way it had come in and the man descended on Nadia again. He raped her over and over and only stopped when he got tired. He

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