Desperate orphan suffering ‘under her guardian’s care’

By Brigid Chemweno

Nairobi, Kenya: Ann Natasha has been going through hell since her parents died in separate incidents several years ago.

The 15-year-old’s father, a construction worker in Nairobi’s Umoja estate, was killed at the height of the 2008 post-election violence.

“We were told that he was murdered in Umoja and was later buried in Lang’ata cemetery,” she says.

Then she was her family’s only child. Natasha, who narrated her ordeal amid sobs to The Standard was then left in the hands of her mother.

However, two years later the cruel hand of fate dealt her another blow when it claimed the life of her mother.  

“My mother died while undergoing operation during child birth in 2010,” she says. She was left alone, all alone in a world she knew little about.

Natasha says life took a turn for the worse after her mother died as she did not know any relative whom she could run for help and support.

Luckily or unluckily after the burial of her mother, she identifies as mama Grace who lives in Lang’ata came to her rescue.

“She promised to transfer me to another school near her home. I had been promoted in my previous school and in 2011 mama Grace took me to Life Spring primary school in Lang’ata where I studied for a year,” she added.

But barely a year after, the devious plans of the ‘Good Samaritan’, a bar attendant, unravelled.

Natasha claims her guardian stopped catering for her needs and told her that she was old enough to take care of her needs.

Her guardian who would arrive at the home late in the evening drunk.  She would allegedly hurl insults at her asking her to go get a husband for herself. But she had other ideas too.

“She told me I have what can be turned into money, but I was not making use it,” she said.

It turned out that the woman wanted Natasha to engage in commercial sex work, but the young girl declined to. 

“She once came in the house with two men and ordered me to accept their demands if I wanted to live a better life. I refused to have sex with the old men for money but this was like opening the Pandora’s box,” she recalled.

“I escaped death by a whisker when she stabbed me after I refused to sleep with the men she came home with,” said Natasha displaying scars on her chest.

Police station

She adds: “She asked why I had refused to have sex with the men; that was a source of income she was introducing me to.”

The following morning she packed her belongings and headed to the nearest police station.  She claims her complaints fell on deaf ears.   Some officers, she says, even dismissed her telling that she was old enough to get married.

 By a good luck, she adds, she came by a woman who, after narrating her ordeal, accepted to accommodate her as she looked for her relatives.

But to date, Natasha who would continue with her education says she has never come across any of her relatives as she doesn’t know any of them.  Natasha says she wakes up every day hoping that she will get a relative or Good Samaritan to take her to school and take care of her.