Introduction

This collaborative research project between Rongo University and the University of Brighton, UK, has been investigating modern slavery as a predicament of people living in rural areas of Migori County. Hard times and the loss of choices suffered in the rural communities of Migori County, brought about mostly by poverty, have resulted in wealthier households, landowners and businesses exploiting the poor. Some of these people argue that they are enabling people to eat and see themselves as philanthropists but the temporary and minimal survival that they offer comes at too big a price for their exploitation. It is here, at the micro-level of community life, where people often fight to survive that much of what constitutes modern slavery has become normalised, embedded in and often shaped by local cultures. These struggles are often not appreciated in their entirety.

The project, which forms part of Rongo University’s research and extension activities led by Prof. Jerry Agalo – a Co-Investigator, looks at the causes of early marriage and child labour through the use of community media practices and community media-based participatory research methods. It should be noted that some of the video and audio content is not of as good a standard as we might like. This is because we employ a participatory approach to community media production. Participants from the community, many with little or no previous experience, participate in capturing the content. A consequence of this is that some community practitioners focus more on the workings of the technology, or that the storyteller is speaking, than they do on the quality of the content they are capturing or what is being said. This is most common with audio elements of content, especially with people new to media practice.

However, we are not a professional media production company and whilst we want to produce good quality media artefacts, it is the content of the stories – the messages being transmitted by the storytellers together with their meaning – that are most important. Community participants will refine their technical skills over time, that is the purpose of our capacity-building approach. In terms of content, the stories rather than clip-on mic rustling,  wind and background noises, have been the main focus of our attention. We have removed some problem content during post-production but not to the extent that it removes the essence of the community participants contributions to these outputs.

Whilst our main focus has been on early marriage and child labour, as our original proposal indicated. It became clear early on in the project that traditional cultural practices such as: Female Genital Mutilation (FGM), landlessness and wife inheritance often make significant contributions to micro-level modern slavery in the poorest rural areas of Migori County and its neighbouring communities.

Again, it should be noted that the pandemic restricted the breadth of our investigation and limited the field trips we wanted to make. It had been our original intentions to visit gold mines; fishing initiatives on Lake Victoria; the maize and sugar plantations across this part of Nyanza, together with the communities these industries provide varying levels of subsistence to and exploitation of.

Background

In our recent fieldwork in Cham gi Wadu, a network of rural village dwellings in the sub-location of South Kanyajuok in the Rongo constituency of Migori County, we witnessed slave-like social situations and social practices among the lives of the community. These included child labour and early marriages.

During our discussions with storytellers,  we observed how difficult it was to elicit information of this nature during the fieldwork. By sharing their stories with us storytellers felt they were exposing their lives to public scrutiny within the community and putting themselves in vulnerable situations. They regarded such information as sensitive. Something to be held secretively. Whilst we had expected this to some degree it is fair to say that it was beginning to cause us problems in gaining honest and revealing responses from the villagers.

Interestingly, it was the loss of an academic team member – with many contacts in the area – a loss that placed a great strain on the project that was to paradoxically provide us with a solution to the problems we’d been experiencing in our recording of community stories as a method of data collection.  By bringing a well known and highly regarded villager in as an active member of the team, our storytellers became more trusting and willing to participate with us in the project. She was able to question the storytellers with cultural sensitivity in a way that, to be honest, was probably beyond us, even before the loss of the other team member. With Jayne’s presence, they seemed to overcome their sense of vulnerability and became more willing to share their experiences.

In addition to the interviews with community stakeholders, eg. the Chief, village elders, community health workers and project participants, we collected 18 stories from people from the sub-location of South Kanyajuok that we felt we could use as data for this investigation. The storytellers were mainly children, teenagers, and women. As our focus is on modern slavery, we were keen to select stories relating to this. In the early stages, we were concerned that much of the content we were capturing was related ‘just to poverty’. However, the more we looked at the stories, and triangulated them with the interview data we captured from the community stakeholders – the more we realised that poverty was the most significant causal factor of these forms of modern slavery. We also observed that such forms of modern slavery were becoming normalised. That within this poverty a process of social normalisation (Kuscu, 2019) was occurring or had occurred.

Although beyond the scope of this project, it seems to us that this acceptance of these patterns of behaviour, i.e. social normalisation, is based on public ignorance or a lack of knowledge and understanding. That is to say, ‘they don’t know what they don’t know.’ The next step of this project, with or without funding, will be to investigate public perceptions of these forms of modern slavery. To raise awareness of its impacts and advocate for change.

The difference between our project and those we have encountered elsewhere seems to us to be that we have been collecting data at the microlevel of the community social structure. We were investigating what has become everyday parts of many people’s lives rather than explosive events of sudden impacts, such as violent abduction, trafficking, and forced sex rings led by criminal gangs within the spotlights of international organisations and agencies. In this study, we are investigating things that over time have become normalised and perceived as the unfortunate consequences of poverty among the marginalised people of less-developed regions in a low-middle income nation.

We do not seek to undermine the amazing work being undertaken by others bringing the pain and suffering caused by modern slavery into the public gaze – such work is of vital importance. However, there are forms of slavery that on the surface appear to be part of everyday life but that in actual fact are socially damaging and require attention. They really are forms of modern slavery hidden in plain sight!

Our studies point to a vicious circle with poverty on one side and modern slavery (child labour, early marriage, FGM, landlessness, etc) on the other. Feeding this vicious cycle are several causal elements, e.g., exploitation (in various forms – see community conversations), culture, tradition, corruption, sexual predation, domestic violence, government policy (e.g. education policy), sexual abuse/rape, etc. These elements are causal contributors to modern slavery at the micro-level. The starting point might be poverty in many instances but these elements either contribute to or cause modern slavery in a manner that has clearly become hidden in plain sight. Where few seem to understand them as forms of and/or contributors to modern slavery.

In our opinion, all are issues that demand the public be made aware of the contribution they make to modern slavery. Not only as a consequence of poverty but also as catalysts of modern slavery and the suffering that accompanies it. This then pushes a requirement that those who know and understand the social effects of these things, should advocate and campaign for effective and meaningful social change on behalf of all forced to suffer and endure all forms of modern slavery.

Warning – you might find the content in some of the stories that follow disturbing.

NB – all images below this line (with the exception of the image next to the UNICEF definitiopn of early marriage) contain embedded video links to the victim’s/survivor’s story and can be viewed by clicking on them.

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Child Labour

Before we started collecting stories of child labour, there were several discussions between community participants about what constitutes child labour? In Migori County, as with many regions of Kenya, especially rural areas, children work with their families in homesteads. This might be chores in the home itself, or tending the animals, or caring for the crops in the nearby vegetable garden. This was deemed a normal part of family life in this region and part of the child’s development and its contribution to family life. The International Labour Organisation (ILO), who see work that does not affect the health, personal development or interfere with schooling as generally being something positive, agrees with our participants. Child labour, on the other hand, is defined by the ILO as,

work that deprives children of their childhood, their potential and their dignity, and that is harmful to physical and mental development. It refers to work that: is mentally, physically, socially or morally dangerous and harmful to children. And/or work that interferes with their schooling by: depriving them of the opportunity to attend school; obliging them to leave school prematurely; or requiring them to attempt to combine school attendance with excessively long and heavy work. (International Labour Organisation, 2021).

Bonface aganya

The stories told here illustrate how poverty, the government’s education policy (and Board of Governors imposing fees on parents to pay for teachers needed to meet local but not funded by the government), Luo traditions of polygamy, domestic neglect and exploitation by family members and others offering false promises have led to child labour ruining Bonface’s education and hopes for the future. We hear from Florence, Bonface’s mother, and Bonface himself. They tell a story of struggle and poverty, within a polygamous marriage, and the stigma and heartbreak they have endured. Whilst his mother sells tea and chapatis to try and get her son, a bright and hard-working young man, through school, his future is being ruined by the social normalisation of modern slavery.

I used to feel so heartbroken when I see my friends go to school while I am headed to look for some work to do. Is was tough but since here was no money I continued to work. So that I could get some little money to pay.

Denis oluoch

Denis shares his feelings about his mother’s experiences of casual labour and how he and his siblings sometimes have to work with her to earn money to make ends meet. He talks of how they must work to pay school fees and sometimes have to work before school and often arrive late as a result.

My mother depends on casual work. Sometimes we go with her to make ends meet. When we go with her we also get paid. Our father neglects us and focuses on his second family.

He gets upset when he recalls how people often don’t keep their promises to pay for work they’ve done. He feels he has a duty to help his mum support him. He speaks of stepping up when his father, who has a second wife and family, neglects them.

His mother doesn’t like her children working and encourages them to attend school but they are often sent home due to fee arrears. His father encourages him to work and this is something that clearly upsets Denis as well.

Our father barely provides for us. He says he has not been paid. Sometimes he just refuses to buy stuff so we talk to our mum. We are forced to go and look for work to raise some money.

Denis is 12 years of age! This raises the question of how much the Luo tradition of polygamy contributes to the problems facing many families and modern slavery?

MICHAEL OTIeNO

Michael is a 12-year-old orphan whose parents died of HIV/Aids. Since he was found by the Chief in Rongo Town, Michael has been living with his uncle who is taking care of him. Before this Michael and his 2 siblings had been sent to live with his grandmother. She abused them and eventually sent them to live with his aunt. She also did not welcome them in her family and sent them to another aunty. Here, Michael was welcomed but because these people saw an opportunity to exploit cheap labour. He was made to tend the goats until it had a detrimental effect on his schooling.

Michael tells how he was routinely beaten with a machete (panga) until he bled, and has the scars to prove it.

If the goats cause any form of distraction on someone’s farm then I would receive thorough beatings, including being beaten with a panga, until I bled. That’s when he would let me go. This happened often.

Since the Chief found him, Michael has been living with another uncle, Nick and is very happy. Nick reveals how Michael’s mother and her children were inherited upon the death of her husband. This is another Luo custom but the grandmother and aunts wanted nothing to do with the because the feared land inheritance issues. The rejection was so deep, we are told, that when Michael’s sister died they were banned from attending the funeral. Michael told us how deep the familial exploitation ran,

I was never paid for my work, they used to give me food as payment but when I do a mistake they would deny me food throughout the day. In good days I would be given dinner only.

moses ochieng

Moses Ochieng is the second born in a family of three children. He is 15 and currently a class 7 student at Kanyamach Primary School. He lives with both his parents, the mother used to work in a sugar cane weighbridge company but she lost her job when it closed. Now she is a stay at home mum. The dad became sick and is restricted in what he can do. This resulted in the children working to raise money to help buy food, and pay for school fees and uniforms. They work in sugarcane farms and take care of other people cattle simply to buy necessities that they need, e.g. food. Their father sometimes does petty trading for products such as bananas and groundnuts, sometimes he helps in weeding sugarcane plantations to get some little money for school fees.

Moses started working at the age of 13 years. The older brother is sickly and can’t work leaving two brothers to help in supporting their parents. Raising school fees is a challenge but they try. Sometimes they work over the weekends for different people. Though the earnings are really low and don’t help much. Moses acknowledges that working is having a serious effect on his education but told us that it’s a matter of survival,

sometimes you look at the situation in the house and it pushes you to go and fetch something. My mum is not happy with this work but we have no choice. Poverty drives us to work.

sheila achieng

Sheila became an orphan at the very early age of 4 months old, when her mother passed away. She lives with her grandmother and has not had an easy life. Her grandmother is frail and can barely provide for them. Sometimes they sleep hungry, sometimes she and her brothers miss school. Her brothers dropped out in class 7 and enrolled in a carpentry course which has helped them at least earn some living. One is Awendo and the other in Eldoret, they are still learning the job so they earn very little. She has no other living family members except an uncle, who struggles to provide for his 5 children.

Being the only girl and the last born, education has not been consistent. Getting school fees is difficult and sometimes she is sent home from school because of fee arrears. Sheila worries that she might not be able to proceed with my education. She takes on work washing utensils for people and earns 20 or 30 shillings. Sometimes she washes clothes for people for 50 shillings, but this is nowhere near enough. Despite her grandmamma’s age, she tries to do some casual labour but gets very little for her efforts.

Sometimes I go home for lunch and find that there is no food so I often opt to dtay in school throughout the day.

Alphonce ODHIAMBO

Alphonce is 16 and in his 3rd year of secondary school. He tells us here how he hopes to be able to study at university but that if his grades are not good enough how he’d like to work in masonary, like his older brothers. Alphonce has be doing casual work like digging and weeding sugarcane for others, since he was 10 years old. The money he receives is never enough but he works tirelessly to bring what he can home just to help keep the family moving. He recalls how often,

The casual work I used to do was our only source of income yet we had hard time in getting enough money.

They’d spend the money he got from the casual work on necessities like foodstuffs, paying school fees and even buying uniform. Alphonce remembers struggling after the death of his father when he was in class six. He speaks of how tough the rest of primary school was.

For instance a lot of money was required, especially for exam fees. We used to sit different exams like external and internal but I worked hard until I did my KCPE exam.

During his time in primary and secondary education Alphonse has had to transfer  schools several times. Teachers do not permit pupils to wear other uniforms, so he has had to work whenever he could simply to buy new uniforms.

During weekends I could venture into the juakali sector where I might be paid up to 500/=.

He would use this money for food and school fees but despite his determined struggles to earn enough for school fees he describes how he was sent home from time to time due to school fees arears.

Alphonce has almost full responsibility for the subsistence for his mother and siblings – his mother has no steady income, so the money he earns from casual labour is often all they have to live on. Despite the enormity of the responsibility placed on his young shoulders – he has been the main bread winner since the age of 10 – Alphonce is still working for his future.

At the moment, if God allows me to finish up my studies and pass well I would like to be a teacher in the future. But also. if I get a lower grade that does not allow university entry, that is below C+, I would love to join a masonry course.

Maxwell Odiwur

Maxwell is currently in  Class 7. He is orphaned with both parents passing away in 2006 & 2007. He was 2 at that time. He has been working to send himself to school. His guardian, a woman his father inherited, said that she would feed the children but not educate them.

 

She says that her children didn’t go to school so she doesn’t see the need of us going to school.

His sister got married early and can’t afford to pay Maxwell’s fees. His younger brother is in an orphanage in Meru and is in class 4. In order to attend school Maxwell has to pay the fees and uniform costs himself. So he works over the weekends and some weekdays and evenings tending cattle for which he is paid 150 Kenyan shillings. It’s not enough! Sometimes he works in sugarcane plantations for a week to get extra money.

I get 500 shillings but then I have missed a week of school. We have been doing exams I don’t know how I will pay for exams and PTA money I have not paid.

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Early marriage

In Kenya, it is generally accepted that there are 3 kinds of formal marriage – religious; civil and  traditional (the latter differs by tribal customs and practices but usually involves a bride-price and/or dowry). We don’t have space here to focus on the tribal marriage customs and practices of the Luo people, although our Co-Investigator Jerry Agalo has started to research this and I dare say we will produce a paper post-project. However, during our investigations we saw that the term ‘marriage’ was being used a lot to describe situations and relationships that did not constitute any of the 3 forms of marriage listed above.

Indeed, it appears that there is practice. especially in rural and impoverished areas, not to follow any arrangements previously understood to constitute marriage.  This practice might start as chance meetings in a social setting. We encountered an example of a 13 year old girl being approached when she went to collect water from the river. It might be more contrived, having been planned over time. Once resolved, the pair quickly arrange to stay together, as boyfriend and girlfriend, in the boy’s residence, or a place he has rented to hide the relationship from his parents and/or village elders. The certainty is that, by this stage, this is a sexual relationship in which at least one is usually under the legal age of consent and as such constitutes a legal case of defilement under Kenyan Law, for which lengthy prison sentences can be given. The question we often found ourselves asking, when we encountered such cases, was why is the law not being enforced?  Putting the legality of defilement to one side, these ‘marriages’ are often consumated without protection against pregnancies or STDs/STIs such as HIV, Herpes, HPV, gonorrhea and syphillis . In many instances, one or both of the partners rarely posses the knowledge and/or resources to protect themselves. The young victims, usually but not always a girl, are also open to manipulation and vulnerable to exploitation.

As they continue their relationship they might eventually declare that they are living as husband and wife. More often than not, children are born out of such cohabitation, sometimes several in very quick order. Occassionally, this makes the relationship stronger and families become accepting but more often than not, the conditions of poverty that the couple live in; their immaturity; and lack of life experienes creates a great deal of stress and unhappiness and the situation starts to turn sour. This form of cohabitation has become known today as “come we stay.”

In our project in Cham gi Wadu community, we encountered a number of cases where underage girls between the ages of 13-16 years had been convinced by young men over 18 to co-habit. In some cases, young girls were lured away by much older men. In most cases, false promises, gifts and small amounts of money were used to convince a girl, who had been living in poverty, often without hope, to believe in the man promising her the world. In most cases. these early “come we stay” marriages are forms of exploitation based on deceit and manipulation and as such contravene the law. The young girl quickly becomes a domestic servant to the male and lives in intolerable conditions. This is modern slavery.

In and around the South Kanyajuok communities, young people’s transition into adulthood is becoming increasingly problematic due to poverty. As a consequence many young people are driven into forced labour, child marriages and human trafficking. Making them easy targets to the ruthless and unprincipled purveyors of modern slavery.

UNICEF defines early marriage as, a formal or informal union between someone 17 or younger and is often the result of gender inequality, entrenched within the norms and behaviour of social structures. UNICEF argues strongly that girls are disproportionately affected by the practice, suggesting that early marriage among boys is 1/6th the rate globally as among girls. They go on to suggest that early marriage,

robs girls of their childhood and threatens their lives and health. Girls who marry before 18 are more likely to experience domestic violence and less likely to remain in school. They have worse economic and health outcomes than their unmarried peers, which are eventually passed down to their own children, further straining a country’s capacity to provide quality health and education services. (UNICEF, 2021)

Whilst we don’t wish to dispute UNICEF’s figures or analysis – indeed we have seen for ourselves the veracity of their analysis. However, we note the following within this project. Among our participants, especially the Community Health Workers (CHWs) – most of who were women – special emphasis was given to what appears to be a growing awareness of the sexual exploitation of boys, especially by mature women – i.e. luring them into sexual relationships, often described as ‘marriage’.

This is not to suggest UNICEF’s figures are incorrect and neither does it in any way belittle or question the plight of girls who endure sexual predation and early marriage, often by older men. It does make us question though whether the consequences of early marriage among girls are often more obvious than among boys, i.e., in the form of early pregnancies? It is also worth noting that whilst it was not too difficult to find victims/survivors of early marriage among girls, young women and their families, we did not find one boy who shared their story with us. This was not the case with child labour and makes us query whether social perceptions of early marriage and its consequences differ when applied to young girls and to young boys. Whether the consequences for the latter are often misunderstood or neglected. This was certainly the view of some of our CHWs.

everlyne akoth

Now 28, Everlyne tells how she grew up as an orphan. Her parents died of HIV/AIDS when we were very young.

My mum was the first to pass away then after a little while my dad also passed away.

Everlyne recalls how being the second last born in a family of six children after her parent’s demise was so difficult.

Because we had to fetch for ourselves and to make it worse our last born was very sick. Most of the time I had to take care of her, so that is when I started missing classes and eventually I had to stop going to school.

Everlyne started looking for small jobs here and there to get some cash for food and upkeep for her siblings. She recollects being employed by some lady who needed help in her house. She promised that she would help her if stayed with her but after being her housemaid for 4 years she never received the help she was promised.

Whilst still living in the woman’s home, she met a man who took her as his wife at the age of 13.

I was young and naïve I didn’t understand much about life. He took me home to his family and we started a family of our own. I thought I was seeking solace instead I got into more trouble.

After a while, he started to drink and would get violent. When he came home he would destroy things in the house. Everlyne cites how he would pour water in the cooking flour so that she couldn#t cook for the children. Other times he would break basins in the house and cause a scene. After three children he disappeared and abandoned his family and his responsibility of taking care of them. Her children are now  8,7  and 2 years and Everlyne is the sole breadwinner. She has no formal education so the jobs she gets are the ones with minimum wage.

I strongly advice girls to avoid situations that lead to early marriage, its not an easy journey and it takes away your dreams and ambitions in life.

julia achieng

Now 29, Julia was raised by her mother, after her father’s death as a family of 3 girls and 1 boy. Her mother had no source of a steady income and sent Julia to live with her sister when in class 3, i.e. a very early age. The aunt did not treat her as her other children. For 2 years she denied Julia the opportunity to go to school. Instead, she was given daily chores, e.g., tending her sheep. She would leave the house at 6 am and not be allowed to return until 6 pm.

It used to pain me as other children go to school while I was overwhelmed with work.  I asked her severally to allow me to go to school but re response was always the same that She did not bring me to live with her so that she could educate me but I came to take care of her sheep.

Eventually, life became unbearable so Julia ran away and ended up as a housegirl for a couple in Awendo. The couple had twins and were looking for someone to help them take care of these children.

After a while I met  “janabii” (a person who calls himself a prophet prays for people, its part of a local religion cult) he took me as a wife at the age of 14. We lived together for 5 years it was not an easy life for me. All he used to do is to pray for people and that was not a stable source of income.

Her husband died as a result of a road traffic accident and was left with 8 children but later discovered she was pregnant so now they are 9.

Julia tries to buy and sell produce to make a living. It doesn’t bring much but at least it takes care of some needs in the house. She also works on farms to get some payment. She says they struggle but get by.

Often the children are sent home from their schools due to school fees. This has made them repeat classes like my first born girl should be in class eight but she is in class 7.

The house her husband left her with is in terrible shape. The roof was leaking and there was no bed. Fortunately, some well-wishers helped her repair the house. When asked about male relatives and the Luo tradition of wife inheritance, Julia is somewhat guarded.

One tried to inherit me but he was irresponsible, he added to our problems. He didn’t contribute any money for food and sometimes we slept hungry. When he came in the evening, we ask him for money for food, he would leave and goes back to his wife’s home. He wanted to eat in my house without contributing, so I called it off. The weight was too much on me. I prefer to be alone and struggle as am used to instead of living with him.

sylvia mokeira

Sylvia is 23 years old and is the third born in a family of five. Her father passed on when she was 3 years old and her mother used to brew local beer to take care of the family. During her last pregnancy, her mother was so sick that she was operated on and the payment was so high that they were forced to sell our land to get her out of the hospital.

After her recovery, the children would join her when she went for casual labour. It was the only way they could make enough money to enable the family to eat. Sylvia recollects how her education was not smooth and she was forced to stay at home and look after her young siblings due to her mother becoming sick again.

When I was joining class six she got sick again and was taken to Tabaka Mission hospital. So I dropped out of school. My big sisters were already married.

At the age of 14years,  Sylvia was taken as a second wife. Her firstborn girl was born deaf-mute. This has been a bone of contention in the house as her husband doesn’t want to enrol the child in a special school. He says he can’t afford to take care of the two families. With no education, all Sylvia can do is casual labour here and there to get by. To make the situation worse the father is now an alcoholic and refuses to listen to the issues of taking this girl to school. Sometimes he says that I should take this girl to my mother. Sylvia earns very little money lives in a  small iron sheet house with one chair and table.

Jackline Auma

Jacqueline, is from Kisumu but lives in the Cham gi wadu area, just past the shopping centre. She is the first of 4 siblings in a polygamous home.

My mother is the first wife. After my father married his second wife. He started mistreating my mother, eventually she left.

Jacqueline got married at the age of 13 because there was nobody to support her with my education. She met her husband when  was going to the river to fetch water.

We talked for a while and I agreed to go with him.

He was 18 years old. When we arrived at their home, I met his mother, she welcomed me. After two months she passed on. So I was the only family he had left because he had already lost his father.

Life was not easy. Soon, he became a drunk. He became violent and irresponsible. I had to do casual jobs to survive. When I couldn’t take it anymore. I left him and went back home. At that time we had one child. We stayed at home for a month until he came after us, seeking to reconcile. After my return, he had totally reformed but he got really sick. He was ill for a month before he passed away.

Since his death, life has been very difficult. He left me with 3 children. I was three months pregnant with the fourth child, when he passed on. I do casual jobs to feed my children, and pay their school fees.

The casual jobs, including weeding farms, depending on their sizes. If it’s a small farm. I am paid 300 shillings, or 400 shillings. With this money, I buy two kg of maize flour, and the rest I pay school fees. My firstborn is in class one, I get these jobs, only when someone calls me.

Juanita Aoko

Juanita shares her daughter’s (Beryl) story. Due to a state of despair at home Beryl opted to get married at the age of 16 years.

Juanita begins by sharing some of her own story, which provides some useful contextualisation. Juanita met her husband, Zakaria, whilst at Kamagambo Gitembe School.

When I got married we lived in poverty, in due time both my parents in-law died. Afterwards my husband died and I remained alone with the kids. After these deaths Iwas  left alone with 7 kids.

After her husband’s death things got worse for Juanita and the children. She had no family who could help and became distressed by their situation but tried to get by.

I do casual labour to survive, when they are sent home due to school fees, we all go to work in farms to raise the needed fees.

Just after Christmas in Decemeber 2019, Juanita went to Kitere for some casual work and returned before sunset to feed the children. Finding that they had already eaten dinner she prepared to  leave for more work at the Posho Mill. She asked them not to sleep in the main house because she had just bought a new mattress. She asked them to wait for her in the kitchen because she only has one portable light. When she returned she found the main house had caught fire and that her neighbours had helped put it out. Essentially, having endured so much by way of personal tragedies, this family of 8 now found themselves destitute. As a family they set about trying to get by but without the help of her friendly neighbours she has no idea where they would be.

Due to the distress at home Beryl, who was in class 8, felt there was no hope for her at home. She left and opted for an early marriage. She is only 16 years.

My first daughter is a victim of early marriage, because of the situation at home, she left this April 2020 at the beginning off the corona pandemic, I didn’t know how to help her because I am helpless myself.

Juanita explains how she tried looking for Beryl and how with the help of the police she got her back. Unfortunately, Beryl ran back to the husband again 4 days later.

I looked for her again but she refused to come back due to the problems [poverty] at home. She needs to be in school.

rose & Vivian

This is the story of mother and daughter, Rose and Vivian. Rose is a mother of five and explains that in 2019, her then 13-year-old firstborn, Vivian, ran off one Saturday afternoon. Vivian claimed that she was going to church but she didn’t come back. They searched for her for a week but she was nowhere to be found. Eventually, after a month they got word of her whereabouts from a family friend. The friend told them that she had seen Vivian and that she had asked her to reach out to them. When Rose arrived at the home where Vivian was staying, she found her daughter and she asked her if she was ready to go home. In tears, Vivian explained that she wanted to go home.

After two weeks they realized that Vivian was pregnant. They went back to the homestead with the police and the boy responsible was arrested. He was 18 years old. He was held for 2 days and then released. Nothing more happened to him. The parents took care of Vivian until she delivered the baby and then took her back to school. She had to repeat Class 6 but is working to catch up.

She is grateful that we rescued her, she keeps telling her younger sisters not to agree to early marriage, its better to seek education.

Vivian explains, how in 2019 she went to visit her friends. During that visit,

I was introduced to a boy who took me to their home and made me pregnant, I therefore decided to stay with him as his wife though I was not ready for this encounte.

Vivian continues to explain how difficult and confusing it was for her,

it’s not something a child should have to go through. I had to look for someone to send word to my mum, she came to rescue me.

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Female genital mutilation (FGM)

The practice of female circumcision, or cutting, or female genital mutilation as it is often known as has been on the decline in Kenya. This is mainly due to the banning of the practice in 2011. However, in some cultures, e.g., the Kisii in Western Kenya, where Migori borders, the practice continues as part of their culture. It is seen as improving the value of a woman and improves her marriageability. However, the practice has been driven underground where it is often conducted by older women in a village sometimes using sharpened stones to make the cut causing untold harm to the girls and endangering their lives. There is also a growing trend of commercialisation and medicalisation of FGM. Whilst some might argue that medicalising the practice provides safeguards, this is often not the case and Parsitau suggests that parents are having their girls, some as young as 5, cut by nurses or medical workers in their homes or health clinics away from the public eye (Parsitau, 2018). A nurse Parsitau interviewed revealed

When parents call me to perform the cut on their girls, both in urban and rural areas, or even in my clinic, I repond because they pay me handsomely. Some even pay for my bus fare and accommodation. I travel widely to cut girls and women. I see no reason why I shouldn’t do this. I have not forced anyone to undergo the cut.

Parsitau suggests that the move towards this commercialisation and medicalisation of FGM is a worrying shift and part of the ‘cat & mouse’ game between the authorities and resistant communities. Whatever, the outcome it was felt by participants in the community conversations and PLWs that FGM is a human rights violation against women. Exploiting them in the interests of culturally entrenched patriarchy. It had been our intention to gain stories from vivtims/survivors of FGM and where possible those who took a stand and refused to be cut. The pandemic restricted our travelling to this community but we were able to get the story from a young Kisii woman who had undergone the 2 phases of the cutting process. This story presents an uncritical and yet revealing insight into the tribal culture behind this practice. In our opinion it is an exploitative practice that endangers women and as such is a form of modern slavery.

caroline ombasa

Click to play video

I was in class four at the age of 10 years when I was circumcised. Circumcision is a stage of transition from childhood to adulthood. When you had reached there, you had to pass through it as a rite of passage which could make you start reasoning like a woman.

In modern Kisii culture in rural villages FGM is conducted in December. Women were sent to go out to look for the girls of the right age to be initiated into adulthood.

It is a stage that we all had to follow to avoid being mocked by our colleagues that you are not circumcised yet you are big. Once you are circumcised, you were free from shame and can be married because you are now a fully grown.

Caroline and her age mates were circumcised at a time when many Kisiis stopped circumcising girls. Previously, they used to circumcise the girl who were old enough to get married. This changed and they started doing it to smaller girls who had not yet known anything about boyfriends.

They used it as a stage because a child of class 1,2 or 3 cannot get married and can continue with her studies despite having passed through the stage.

Caroline explains that the Kisii culture changed when education became formalised in Kenya. Because, in principle at least, all children are meant to attend free education, the culture of cutting young women of marrying age was changed so that young could be cut before going on with education. She suggests that circumcision, as a right of passage, was about teaching a woman,

All the responsibilities of a woman going to the farm and household chores. She had to be circumcised to make her ready for marriage.  Then they searched for a husband to get married to.

That was before formal education. When formal education was introduced, every child had to be taken to school. This practice of tradition and culture experienced a shift and started circumcising girls around the ages of 10-15  years.  These girls had not yet known much and had to continue with education after being cut. This was a big difference to when they used to circumcise girls who had reached 18 years and above and were ready for marriage. It is now,

small girls [who] had to be circumcised to pass through that stage.

It is not clear to us how this practice constitutes a right of passage from girlhood to womanhood, if it ever did! This is something we will continue to investigate when we can raise people’s awareness of this and stimulate further community conversations.

Evelyne Moraa

In this short story Evelyne speaks of her difficult life, moving from her ancestoral Kisii lands to Machakos County to life with her uncle. She recounts her joy at the age of 12 to be going on 2 journeys (Safari) to see her mother, which turns to surprise when along with 10 other girls of a similar age, whom she refers to as her peers, when she is circumcised by a woman with a razor. She tells us that no-one knew thay were there and how they were confined, locked in a room, for a week until they were ‘cleansed’ in the river to signify the end of the ‘healing’ process. She informs us that one of her peers was married immediately and how many others ‘felt ready for a man as their breasts grew’. They were now women! Evelyne recalls asking her mother why, when the government has outlawed circumcision, it is still being practiced. Her mother tells her is is a Kisii tradition, that must be kept and practiced in secret. Placing the Caroline’s and Evelyne’s stories in juxtaposition reveals much about the practice and why it is diffivult to eradicate completely, especially now it is a commercial as well as cultural practice.

FGM and the Kuria tribe

This interview between Flora Kore Abong’ and Everlyne Oroni, both students from Rongo University at the time, builds on the story of FGM, as practiced by the Kisii people. (see Caroline Ombasa above). Recorded in 2014, as part of Community Media 4 Kenya’s (CM4K) early community media learning collaborations between students and staff from the University of Brighton and Rongo University, this video discusses the Kuria tradition of FGM in the context  of patriarchal power over women. It speaks to FGM as a form of exploitation and raises issues of what men can do to stand alongside women to combat such abuses. Everlyne, a young Kuria woman, reveals why she resisted being cut and the pressures she experienced.

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Landlessness

With over 72% of the Kenyan population living in rural areas they continue by suggesting that even to this day, the majority of Kenyans depend on produce from the earth to sustain  life. Njuguna and Baya, identify 3 main reasons for landlessness and the problems of poverty this creates among many.

1) Historical landlessness due to colonization and the allocation of indigenous landto foreigners by different powers at different times in history. 2) The individualization of tenure through the land adjudication and consolidationprogrammes and the subdivision of large cooperative farms and group ranches created landlessness in the rural areas. 3) Land clashes of the 1990s in Rift Valley have created a class of“landless” people since it has proved difficult for the victims to go back to theiroriginal parcels of land. (Njuguna and Baya, 2001, p9.)

They further observe that the control of land brings with it economic power, and as such is often the basis for social and political power also.Konyimbi that in Kenya, a country dependant on land-based agricultural, the problem of landlessness can only increase as the population grows. He also reflects, albeit prior to the introduction of the 2009 constituional reforms, that the land adjudication, consolidation and registration did not bring with it the socio-economic projections that were promised.

It has not stemmed landlessness as those with titles at times attempt to enforce their rights against family members whose ancestral rights could not have been recorded in the land registers.

Citing livelihood monitoring data from the Welfare Monitoring Survey the Kenyan Social Watch Coalition note that,

as a whole the rich own or work more land than the poor. While poor households, accounting for 70% of the population, hold 43% of the total land, the remaining 30% hold 57% of the land. (KSWC, 2004).

The report continues by informing the reader that 10% of the rural population are landless and that and that 44% own less than 2 acres of land and that,

Landlessness affects the ability to secure basic needs such as food, clothing and shelter.

In a more recent critique of Kenya’s appropach to land reforms, Shanguhyia argues that since the introduction of the new constitution in 2010, there has been a hesitancy to ensure an effective and equitable land reform agenda (2017). We did not set out to investigate landlessness but we encountered 2 people from the local communities we were investigating who wanted to share their stories with us. It became clear, as it has with child. labour and early marriage that these forms of exploitation and therefore modern slavery can rarely be seen in isolation from one another. There is often a connection between them and most are nearly always related to poverty, as the 2 stories below indicate.

Charles Owino

Charles lives in Kamagambo where his ancestoral lands are. In 1969, with the family living in Sagei, his father passed away. As is customary in Luo tradition, after his death, his brother inherited his mother and returned her to Kamagambo, where they lived, as a second family of 8 siblings, until one of his two sisters died. As he got older Charles started a family and went to live in Nairobi until he decided to return with his family to Kamagambo.

Now let me explain to you why I have not settled . We relocated to come to Kamagambo after the death of my father in 1969. Our village is called Kogila, my uncle who relocated my mother passed away. His brothers also passed away. Our mother also passed away. Only the younger generation was left behind.

Charles explains how these circumstances combined to make him victim to cultural beliefs of bad omen. People were saying that the loss of his parents and uncles was a bad omen. He left with his wife and two sons to live with other relatives in Katono. Unfortunately, his son got sick and passed away and they burried him there.

The loss of one of his 2 sons led to conflict between Charles and his wife and she left him eventually . That was 10 years ago. He lived away from home for a long time before deciding to return to his ancestoral lands. Upon returning he was surprised at the destruction he found.

Everything I owned was destroyed due to border conflict between the Luos and the Kissi community. My house was completely destroyed.

It was as he was still coming to terms with this turn of events that one of his relatives lost his wife. At the funeral he connected with the ex-wife of another relative who was also returning home. She needed help settling back in so Charles decided, as he did not have a wife, that he would live with her. After some years she passed away and Charles had to leave that homestead and go back to where his mother was buried.

I remained in our ancestral land. Land, where my mother was buried, and that was rightfully given to us by our uncle. One of my cousins has refused to give me my rightful shamba [farm]. His brothers, [other cousins] have no issues with us sharing the land that their father gave us.  It is just this one cousin, the last born, who is denying me land that his father shared with us and I lack the capacity to do anything about it.

Charles is currently living with his firstborn girl and her four children. Her marriage did not work out so he is living with her but is unable to farm because he is denied access to land that, he says, should be his.

Josephine Atieno

Josephine has been living in Kamagambo since she got married. She was married as a second wife, since he had inherited the first wife. The polygamous family, Josephine eventually gave birth to 3 children, lived with the first wife, in her homestead. However, she later threw them out of her home and they relocated to Ranen. There they rented a house where they lived for 7 years. Unfortunately, the husband died and they decided that his first wife should bury him. After the burial they stayed with her on the homestead for 7 months until she kicked them out again. The house in which they had been staying was pulled down, so they moved back to Ranen.

Josephine now has 7 children who need to go to school. She undertakes casual labour to provide food for the children. To make ends meet, they go to work together. Though they were young, they worked in farms to get school fees. Josephine, who is also  hired to do laundry, reflects on the struggles she and her children face just getting by. She experienced some good fortune with her first daughter.

My daughter was helped to join secondary school. I looked for money to pay her fees, and a good samaritan also sends me some money to help pay for her school fees. She finished her secondary school education, she’s now at home.

However, things hae not been so easy for the other children.

My other daughter dropped out of school in class, eight, and went to get married. Since we ran out of options. Someone took my third daughter, promising to educate her but she was handed over to some man for a wife. I was told that she found someone who can pay her school fees on condition that they live together as husband and wife.

IJosephine protested and told the woman to bring her back home.

She ignored me. I took the matter to Rongo police station. She was arrested but the people came to bail her out. This man was not an agemate. He was too old for her.

She was in form one and when she was arrested this man went into hiding. Josephine was advised to take her daughter back to school, which she did but the daughter continued seeing this man. She was not living with her mother in Ranen.

The girl fell pregnant while still at school and underwent ceserian surgery in a hospital in Rongo. Unfortunately her child passed away and she later resumed with her education. However, she got pregnant for a second time, the Kenya Certificate of Secondary Exams coincided with her delivery date. She took the KCSE and delivered in Royal Hospital in Rongo.

Josephine recalls how she was taking care of her daughter in hospital, as she did her exams and gave birth. Her daughter later told her to go home and rest for a while, which she did.

The husband came and discharged her, and they went away together. I gave up trying to separate her from that man. At least she completed her secondary school education.

Life was still really hard in Ranen and nothing seems to have been done to the older man who broke the law with Josephine’s daughter. At some point, her co-wife’s children decided to help her. They gave her one of their mother’s house to live in.

It is a small house with a small space to farm. At least I can farm some little maize for the children so that they don’t borrow. I still do casual jobs for survival.

At least they all go to school. I have one child who comes to school here at Omware. Primary School. At least, they all go to school. Her education is unstable due to lack of consistent school fees. This makes her miss some classes, and exams too. I have two boys and two girls who are still in school. My sons are in class four and class three. My girl is in class two the other girl is in class seven, she studies here also.

I have a daughter who opted for early marriage. Because the man had money. She prefers a life with financial resources than to struggle at home. I advised her to stay with us. We work together to make ends meet. She would agree, but hide and run away at night to meet with that man in Rongo to be given money.

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Trafficking

Human trafficking is understood in a variety of different ways. The United Nations describes it as:

Trafficking in persons shall mean the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harbouring or receipt of persons, by means of the threat or use of force or other forms of coercion, of abduction, of fraud, of deception, of the abuseof power or of a position of vulnerability or of the giving or receiving of payments or benefits to achieve the consent of a person having control over another person, for the purpose of exploitation. Exploitation shall include, at a minimum, the exploitation of the prostitution of others or other forms of sexual exploitation, forced labour or services, slavery or practices similar to slavery, servitude or the removal of organs. (Annex 1.1, 2000)

We know from our dialogue with community partners that cases of most of these forms of human trafficking occur in the former province of Nyanza (therefore in Migori County). As explained previously the pandemic prevented us from collected stories from victims/survivors but we were able to capture the story of a victim of child trafficking – Rose Atieno, a woman of 61 years of age. Rose’s story is complex and the need for translation of a tribal language adds to this complexity. However, it raises a number of issues relating to modern slavery and, as in many cases of stories we have elicited, it highlights the vicious circle between poverty, modern slavery, tribal customs, traditions and beliefs (i.e., tribal culture) such as polygamy and early marriage and the role that bribery plays in cases of child exploitation.

Whilst we hope to develop this section of our blog in a post-COVID19 pandemic future, for now we turn our attention to child trafficking. The Borgen project suggests that the African child trafficking market has become,

a refined system and it is difficult for authorities to keep up with scale of the probelm. McGrail, 2021)

Research conducted by HAART Kenya suggests that only 2% of the children trafficked in Kenya ever return home (2018). This research also suggests that the staring point, for trafficking, i.e., the recruiter, is usually someone known to the child. The UK’s National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC) describes and modern slavery involving children as child abuse. The define the trafficking of children as situations,

where children and young people tricked, forced or persuaded to leave their homes and are moved or transported and then exploited, forced to work or sold. (NSPCC, 2021)

At this moment in time, as Rose’s story tells us, we do not know what is going to happen to Rammah. His great grandfather is pledged to taking up the case and we know that the Chief is trying to assist but the pandemic has halted the investigation. We do know that whilst those involved initially confessed, there are allegations that the person who the child was sold to might have bribed the police and welfare administrators. We have no way of knowing the truth at this moment in time but we do know that at the time the story was shared the child disappeared suddenly, without word, and had been transported to Gwassi, Nyandiwa – some 96 Km from Rose’s location and the boy’s home for the past 5 or 6 years.