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These are the voices of grandmothers ranging from their sixties to nineties in the

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Korogocho slums of Nairobi.

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This is their version of a war cry. As they fight to[br]defend their human rights and

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especially their sexual rights.

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I joined this karate training group because of the kind of lives we live here. I wanted to

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learn the skills to defend myself against [br]attackers. Many grannies have lost

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their lives and some were even raped and hung dead outside of their windows at night.

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Today they are in class to learn how to fight[br]potential violators.

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Sheila Wairimu, was so concerned with the grannies from Korogocho,

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that she started karate classes for them.

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Way back in the year 2005 [br]when we experienced rape,

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especially on grannies who used to be raped and brutally murdered.

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I encountered three cases of old women, [br]who were raped and later brutally

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murdered. So along with my friends we [br]were able to start a self defense team.

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The single mother of one spends two days in a week training the elderly women in karate.

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Her classes are free. Despite the fact she herself[br]struggles for money by selling coffee.

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On average she makes about two dollars a day. Hardly enough to sustain her family.

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I sell black coffee very early in the morning at the [br]apartment where I live.

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Sometimes I go to school and ask for paid classes whose proceeds

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we buy flour for the grannies and also [br]pay for the hall in which we train.

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No .. your hand can not protect your face. Always [br]have it at guard

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The self defense training sessions are a home grown response to violent attacks on

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grandmothers in slum. Young bandits here often rape elderly women before or after

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committing a crime. They believe that this will prevent them from being caught.

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Sheila was taught martial arts in 2005 [br]from a volunteer. Now it is Sheila's

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we had an 80 year-old woman who had been gang raped[br]by ten men.

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turn to volunteer. In three years she trained[br]over 60 elderly women in Korogocho.

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I joined this self defense training group [br]because previously, men attacked old women's

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homes and did all sorts of things to us. [br]Many grannies lost their lives.

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I needed to learn how to defend [br]myself instead of always making calls

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for help from neighbours every [br]time my home was attacked.

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Statistics from the largest gender based violence [br]recovery centre in Nairobi indicate

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they treated 4,815 people who were raped between 2008 and 2010.

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4,093 were women. But this is just a fraction of

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the total cases reported nationally [br]as many cases go unreported.

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Since inception in 2001 we treated over 15,300 [br]cases of gender violence survivors.

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Which includes both sexual violence [br]and domestic violence,

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with sexual violence being the highest. 90 percent of these cases are of sexual violence.

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49 percent are women, 45 percent children [br]and around 6 percent are men.

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We do have cases of elderly women. [br]Our oldest client was a 105 year old woman.

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Just last week we had an 80 year old woman who had been gang raped by ten men.

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Fact is women's rights remain a [br]sensitive subject in Kenya.

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Making rape a hard crime to convict.

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Sexual violence is one of those private offenses.[br]Firstly its un-African for people

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to discuss sexual or reproductive organs.

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There is still a lot to be done.

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The kind of questions rape[br]survivors are asked de-motivates.

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Despite this, Sheila continues unrelentingly with[br]her endeavor to arm this women with

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the valuable self defense skills and at least restore their self esteem. But why?

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My heart goes out to the grannies because of [br]what they were going through and seeing that

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because of age, they are old and frail, nobody [br]is able to stand up and fight for them.

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Sheila however envisages a future free of[br]rape cases not only here in Korogocho,

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but in other parts of the country where she intends to start similar classes and continue

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with her efforts, to empower more elderly women[br]to defend themselves against violators.