Younis form Kenya was forced to marry a man old enough to be her
grandfather when she was only nine years old, she been freed after four
years of hell. Read full story after the cut...
Younis,
13, who is part of the Samburu tribe, was married off by her parents in
accordance to tribal custom, which also includes female genital
mutilation and offering girls to male relatives for sex.
She
was forced to live with the 78-year-old man for four years until she
escaped and walked barefoot to a boarding school for girls called the
Samburu Girls Foundation.
Explaining her harrowing and heartbreaking tale, Younis told CNN: 'When I was about nine years old, my father married me off to an old man who was 78 years old'
'He
told me that I will be a wife but I was just innocent, I wanted to come
to school. But that man wanted me to be a third wife. I told him, I
will not be your wife, and he caned me.'
Luckily for Younis and around 200 other girls across Kenya, the Samburu Girls Foundation offered her a way out.
She said: 'I heard that there is a woman who helps children.
'I
came from Baragoi barefoot, I didn't even have shoes that day. I came
to Maralal. Kulea took me to the children's office, she rescued me.'
Run
by Josephine Kulea, the foundation takes in girls who have been
disowned by their families and helps them deal with the trauma of forced
genital mutilation or any other horrific events they have suffered.
Josephine,
who is also part of the Samburu tribe, said: 'I realised we are the
only ones doing FGM, female genital mutilation, the other communities
are not doing it.
'I
came to realise that there are things that are not right and I need to
make a difference, that's how I started rescuing girls.'
Early
marriage is illegal in Kenya but Josephine explained that people within
the Samburu community were not pleased that she was rescuing girls from
forced unions.
She said: 'Growing up from this community, everyone looks at me like, 'You should be like us, you should not be fighting us.
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