Communities in northern Kenya are guided by their cultural beliefs that are adhered to with strictness. Without a second thought as to the effects of the community’s ways to different situations, people suffering from certain diseases have found themselves in desperation after being stigmatised and ostracised.
Diseases such as HIV/Aids and tuberculosis have seen an increase in cases of violence directed at women survivors being chased away by their families for contracting tuberculosis.
World TB Day, falls on March 24 each year. It is designed to build public awareness that tuberculosis today remains an epidemic, causing the deaths of several million people each year, mostly in developing countries. March 24th commemorates the day in 1882 when Dr Robert Koch astounded the scientific community by announcing that he had discovered the cause of tuberculosis, the TB bacillus. At the time of Koch’s announcement in Berlin, TB was raging through Europe and the Americas, causing the death of one out of every seven people. Koch’s discovery opened the way towards diagnosing and curing TB.
However, in northern Kenya, there will be no marking of this day as cultural biases, stigma and ostracize of tuberculosis patients is contributing to cases of gender violence targeting women diagnosed with the disease.
The people living in the remote villages in the north are ignorant about these diseases and have instead stuck to their cultural beliefs where they view TB as a curse. For this reason hundreds of TB survivors have been thrown out of their homes so they do not infect the other family members with the curse.
The survivors have particularly had a rough time when their condition worsened and especially when they are experiencing continuous cough and weigh loss. TB survivors end up being thrown out of the community traditional homestead. They have to fend for themselves and get alternative shelter and medical care.
Help has come in the form of good Samaritans who take them to the nearest health centres where they get support and protection while undergoing treatment.
However, the situation is not same for those who have been diagnosed with the disease. Majority have ended up being chased away from their family home.
The victims have had to suffer in the hands of young men who take advantage of their weakness, sickness and loneliness to wage attacks against them. They have been raped in some cases.
The women only get reprieve if they manage to get to a TB manyatta or health centres.
Despite suffering the trauma of being sick and facing ostracisation, the risk of contracting sexually transmitted diseases puts the women in a more precarious position.
The situation is made worse by the fact that community members do not bother to come to their rescue even when they raise alarm. They disregard the cries with simple notion that the woman is being haunted by the curse.
Nasra Odhwai, a TB patient was attacked by four young men in Dertu village, Garissa District after she was chased away by her family for showing symptoms of the disease.
Odhwai says: “I was chased in the evening and with no place to go. I decided to sleep outside our traditional house. In middle of the night, I was woken up by four young men and they tried to remove my clothes. I was helpless and I started shouting but nobody came to my rescue. I was gang raped by the four men. The incident still haunts me.”
The young men who attacked Odhwai are part of a gang that spend the whole day chewing miraa (khat), a mild stimulant that keeps then awake the whole night. It also increases their sexual libido.
One of the young men who participated in a rape orgy and later contracted TB claims the gang he belongs to has raped about 20 women who were thrown out of their homes.
“I raped TB survivors and now that I am infected I must get treatment before my family throws me out,” says Abdirahman Olow.
He says: “After chewing miraa and we would patrol the village where we normally came across women sleeping outside their huts. We knew that they had been thrown out and could have sex with them forcefully.”
Olow regrets the action because when he realised that he had contracted the disease, he fled the village to Garissa town where he hopes to get treatment. He now understands the amount of pain and suffering the women underwent as result of the attacks and rape in the remote villages.
However, it is clear that the attacks directed against women TB patients is due to ignorance that rides high on some outdated beliefs associated with disease.
The regional deputy TB coordinator, Mr Harun Hussein says such attacks have been reported in all villages by patients who have found to the health centre and that the situation is fuelled by community rejection of the TB patients.
“Almost all women brought to the health centre say they have been attacked, beaten and raped. Only few escaped the ordeal.”
However the situation is slowly changing now and the community has been getting TB education from various religious groups and women leaders in the region.
This article was originally published in the Reject Online Issue 36
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