Birunda Shelter for 300 Street Children

A Case Study of Two Girls, Anny and Esther, who travelled 120 km to Birunda Shelter 

Anny was born in a small village approximately 120 km from Kitale where Railway Children’s project and the Birunda Shelter are based.  Her father died after a short illness when she was 15, leaving her mother with seven children to look after; two sisters older than Anny and four younger brothers.

Family life deteriorated rapidly for Anny and her family. Her mother struggled to look after them on her own. She didn’t have any animals to provide food or an income, just a very small farm that barely produced enough food to keep them all going. Anny and her siblings soon stopped regularly attending school.

Anny’s friend Esther also comes from the same village, but from a polygamous family. Her father died when she was 12-year- old, leaving her mother to cope with eight children; five girls and three boys. At age 15, Esther was still in school and had worked hard to get to secondary school. Her sister had dropped out during primary school to get married and her older brother had also married young. Two of her younger brothers were still at school, but raising the school fees was hard for their mother and she was struggling to feed them and relied on what local benefits she could access.

Inevitably, both Anny and Esther soon had no choice but to drop out of school. We don’t know the next chapter of their story, but we do know they both became pregnant. Anny and Esther are from the Pokot ethnic community, which is among a number of tribes practicing Female Genital Mutilation (FGM). This is seen as a mandatory rite of passage before marriage, otherwise pregnant girls will not be attended to during labour or respected by the community.

According to Pokot culture, this ritual transforms a girl from childhood to adulthood giving her a stage of maturity that will earn her more respect when she is married. Some girls are forced by their parents/guardians to undergo this ritual before they are pregnant to mark them out as ready for marriage so any man in the village is permitted to propose to her. The Pokot community doesn’t value education for girls and early marriage is common in the community due to extreme poverty

Anny and Esther were 16 when they became pregnant last year. Under pressure from their culture, their parents organised FGM before the delivery of their babies. The procedure was carried out in the cow shed, as is the case for all the girls in the village. During FGM it has been known for the girl to bleed to death and pregnant mothers have severe difficulties giving birth.

FGM is an unlawful activity in Kenya and as soon as the local administration came to hear about it they arrested Anny and Esther’s parents. The children were referred to the local Child Welfare Society, who then referred them on to Railway Children’s project. Although more than 100 km away, this was the nearest shelter and the only place they could safely stay while their parents’ cases were heard in court.

When Anny and Esther were rescued, their wounds were still fresh and they were three and four months pregnant respectively. They stayed in Birunda for two months while they attended a clinic and we provided for their immediate medical and psychological needs.  

Our project team visited Anny and Esther’s mothers in Kapenguria women prison where they were remanded and they visited the Children’s Officer in West Pokot County to lobby for a lesser sentence since the children had no one to take care of them.  

Thanks to our Project Team, Anny and Esther have now been referred to the Child Welfare Society’s home for young mothers where they have both given birth safely.

Female genital mutilation is a violation of human rights and many organisations such as UNICEF, USAID and the government are trying to educate and empower the leaders and communities on the dangers of FGM. While this has reduced the percentage of girls being cut, FGM is still prevalent within some of the communities where Birunda Shelter children come from.

The children staying in the shelter are normally those found living on the streets of Kitale; this referral from more than 100 km away shows the lack of services in the area and how vital the Birunda Shelter is in protecting vulnerable children who have nowhere else to turn.

• To protect identities names and images have been changed