By Geoffrey Kamadi
NAIROBI (AlertNet) - The end of Kenya's prolonged drought has set off an age-old but illegal tradition: Maasai families are marrying their teenage girls to older men in exchange for cattle to restock their drought-decimated herds.
After years of devastating drought, rains are greening Kenya's grazing grounds and herders are eager to rebuild their herds. But cattle rustling from neighbors, one traditional method of restocking after drought or disease outbreaks, has proved ineffective because so few local cattle survived the drought.
The other traditional option open to pastoralist families is to pull teenage girls from school and arrange traditional marriages for them with older men willing to provide a few head of cattle as a bride price, or traditional marriage payment.
That is exactly what is now happening in Enkorinka location in Kenya's Kajiado district, which lies in the Rift Valley about 80 kilometers (50 miles) south of Nairobi, Kenya's capital, officials said.
'A SPIKE IN EARLY MARRIAGES'
"We are witnessing a spike in early marriages affecting Maasai girls in anticipation of the rains. Fathers are booking their girls for marrying them off in great numbers at this time because of the drought situation here," said Lanoi Parmuat of the Free Pentecostal Fellowship in Kenya church.
The surge in transactional marriages has in turn set off efforts to protect young girls threatened by the practice, which can be physically and emotionally traumatic and lead to a variety of health dangers, particular for those who become pregnant at a young age.
Rosemary Muganda, the executive director of Kenya's Centre for the Study of Adolescence, said pregnancy-related complications are three times more likely to happen among women below the age of 20. Her centre works to help girls stay in schools and gain life skills.
"Teenage girls are usually married to older men who have a long sexual history, a situation which may expose them to sexually transmitted diseases," she said.
Nekishon Nkilanyu, 14, is among those recently rescued from early marriage in the district with the help of Parmuat and her church.
Nkilanyu was offered in an arranged marriage by her father at the age of 12. At 14, she has already suffered two miscarriages, and has never been to school.
Prior to her rescue, she herded goats with her friend Tanei Lankei 12, in Oloilelai location, also near Kajiado. One day she learned that Lankei planned to run away from home because her father had plans to marry her off. Nkilanyu was more than happy to join in the plan.
"It was painful for me. My husband kept on hitting me time and time again, whenever he came home drunk," Nkilanyu recalled, amid sobs.
"I could see what my friend was going through and I could not imagine myself going through the same experience," whispered Lankei, her eyes welling with tears.
The two girls woke up early one chilly morning last October and made their escape. They trudged for four kilometers to Bissil Academy, the nearest primary school, where they sought help.
The school authorities contacted a local children's services office, which in collaboration with Parmuat's church group facilitated the children's admittance to a temporary shelter and later to a children's home.
RETURN TO OLD PRACTICES
"We are very much concerned. At this rate we fear that the community is reverting back to a practice which we and other organisations have spent decades in fighting and have achieved some notable results," Parmuat said.
According to Jackson Kiplagat, an environmental expert with the Worldwide Fund for Nature, changing weather patterns in Kajiado have pushed families to desperate measures to survive.
"The longstanding drought has impacted disastrously on the economy of the district, which depends exclusively on livestock for livelihood," he said.
Jonathan Ole Merian, a 71-year-old resident of the area, says the droughts the region has long faced are lasting longer and longer.
The most recent drought, he said, was the worst since 1930, when the so-called "Drought of the Dry Bones" ended many people's lives and killed innumerable livestock.
During the latest drought, many villagers were forced to sell their surviving emaciated animals at throw-away prices simply to avoid further losses.
A cow that used to fetch no less than 35,000 Kenyan shillings ($467) in times of adequate rainfall was going for just 300 shillings ($4) by the end of the drought. And a kilogramme of hide which sold for 600 shillings ($7) now brings in less than 40 shillings (50 cents).
In a bid to ease the situation for desperate pastoralists, Kenya's government launched a 700 million shilling ($9.3 million) emergency assistance program that allowed villagers to sell their weakest animals to the government-owned Kenya Meat Commission for slaughter, in return for a guaranteed price.
But farmers in Kajiado district, among the hardest hit by livestock deaths, say the program was slow in reaching them. It was also suspended for a time because of a huge oversupply of dead and dying cattle.
Geoffrey Kamadi is a freelance Kenyan journalist based in Nairobi. He has written widely on science and health issues for local newspapers as well as online publications.
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