These are the voices of grandmothers ranging from their sixties to nineties in the
Korogocho slums of Nairobi.
This is their version of a war cry. As they fight to defend their human rights and
especially their sexual rights.
I joined this karate training group because of the kind of lives we live here. I wanted to
learn the skills to defend myself against attackers. Many grannies have lost
their lives and some were even raped and hung dead outside of their windows at night.
Today they are in class to learn how to fight potential violators.
Sheila Wairimu, was so concerned with the grannies from Korogocho,
that she started karate classes for them.
Way back in the year 2005 when we experienced rape,
especially on grannies who used to be raped and brutally murdered.
I encountered three cases of old women, who were raped and later brutally
murdered. So along with my friends we were able to start a self defense team.
The single mother of one spends two days in a week training the elderly women in karate.
Her classes are free. Despite the fact she herself struggles for money by selling coffee.
On average she makes about two dollars a day. Hardly enough to sustain her family.
I sell black coffee very early in the morning at the apartment where I live.
Sometimes I go to school and ask for paid classes whose proceeds
we buy flour for the grannies and also pay for the hall in which we train.
No .. your hand can not protect your face. Always have it at guard
The self defense training sessions are a home grown response to violent attacks on
grandmothers in slum. Young bandits here often rape elderly women before or after
committing a crime. They believe that this will prevent them from being caught.
Sheila was taught martial arts in 2005 from a volunteer. Now it is Sheila's
we had an 80 year-old woman who had been gang raped by ten men.
turn to volunteer. In three years she trained over 60 elderly women in Korogocho.
I joined this self defense training group because previously, men attacked old women's
homes and did all sorts of things to us. Many grannies lost their lives.
I needed to learn how to defend myself instead of always making calls
for help from neighbours every time my home was attacked.
Statistics from the largest gender based violence recovery centre in Nairobi indicate
they treated 4,815 people who were raped between 2008 and 2010.
4,093 were women. But this is just a fraction of
the total cases reported nationally as many cases go unreported.
Since inception in 2001 we treated over 15,300 cases of gender violence survivors.
Which includes both sexual violence and domestic violence,
with sexual violence being the highest. 90 percent of these cases are of sexual violence.
49 percent are women, 45 percent children and around 6 percent are men.
We do have cases of elderly women. Our oldest client was a 105 year old woman.
Just last week we had an 80 year old woman who had been gang raped by ten men.
Fact is women's rights remain a sensitive subject in Kenya.
Making rape a hard crime to convict.
Sexual violence is one of those private offenses. Firstly its un-African for people
to discuss sexual or reproductive organs.
There is still a lot to be done.
The kind of questions rape survivors are asked de-motivates.
Despite this, Sheila continues unrelentingly with her endeavor to arm this women with
the valuable self defense skills and at least restore their self esteem. But why?
My heart goes out to the grannies because of what they were going through and seeing that
because of age, they are old and frail, nobody is able to stand up and fight for them.
Sheila however envisages a future free of rape cases not only here in Korogocho,
but in other parts of the country where she intends to start similar classes and continue
with her efforts, to empower more elderly women to defend themselves against violators.