DEFYING OLD AGE TRADITION TO PROMOTE GIRL CHILD EDUCATION
Members of Tuiyoluk Women Group during a school sensitization forum
Eighteen-year-old Cheptoo (not her real name) is one of the 15 girls who were rescued in Nandi County and helped to go back to school by Tuiyoluk women group, a community initiative of 30 elderly women who are advocating against the practice of Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) and are mentoring young girls in schools in Nandi County. With the support from her school and the women group, Cheptoo is currently sitting for her Kenya Certificate of Primary Education. Cheptoo reveals that she was 14 years when she got pregnant as she was preparing to sit for KCPE examination. However, that was not to be. Her dreams were shattered when she was impregnated by an older man who defiled her.
Cheptoo (not her real name), a beneficiary of Tuiyoluk Women Group.
Due to poverty in her family, Cheptoo’s parents accepted local arrangements referred to as kipkaa that allows for compensation in an out of court settlement and payment of bride price in the form of cattle from the perpetrator, who paid up to avoid the matter being taken up by the local chief and police as an offence under legal provisions such as the Sexual Offences Act and Children’s Act. All these laws have outlawed marriage to a minor, which is defined as anyone below 18 years. However, looking back four years later, Cheptoo says she has no regrets as her four-year-old daughter is being taken care of by her mother and her husband has allowed her to resume studies at Got Ne Lel Girls, a boarding school in Songhor Division, Nandi County. Cheptoo’s daughter stays with her parents and goes to a local nursery school near their home. “It was initially very challenging for me to balance the roles of a mother, wife and student but I am grateful to the Tuiyoluk Women Group through Peace Initiative Kenya (PIK) Project for giving me the financial and moral support to continue with my studies in a boarding school,” says Cheptoo.
Some of the rescued girls, most in puberty stage and in primary school, had been married off, given birth and then requested their parents and husbands to back to school. According to Cheptoo, she was not keen on having a long term relationship with the man but was forced into it by her parents because of the high poverty level in their home, fear of embarrassment and the Nandi culture which does not embrace girls who gets pregnant out of wedlock. “I was in Standard Eight when I got pregnant and was forced to abandon my education and marry an older man. However, after I delivered and attended a sensitisation forum organised by Tuiyoluk Women Group, I decided to ask them to support me to return to school, which they did,� says Cheptoo.