11 March 2019
News
NAIROBO, Kenya – “When sleeping women awake, mountains move,” said Dr. Natalia Kanem, UNFPA’s Executive Director, quoting a Kenyan proverb at an event in the sprawling Kibera informal settlement.
The event, held on... Read more
30 May 2018
News
JOHANNESBURG, South Africa/NAROK, Kenya – “I felt embarrassed to be a girl and felt like it was a punishment,” recalled 13-year-old Faith, describing her first period.
She was living in a boarding school in Narok... Read more
6 April 2018
News
TANGULBEI, Kenya – The morning of 20 August began like any other for Lena Towai, 35. Ms. Towai was in the final days of pregnancy, eagerly awaiting the arrival of her seventh child. Only hours later, her world would be... Read more
4 December 2017
News
KAKUMA, Kenya – Dalia Asinde was married 16 years ago in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. She was 22 and in love, she said. But her husband soon became violent – and relentless. She lost count of the beatings,... Read more
6 September 2017
News
NAIKARRA, Kenya – “I woke up one morning, and my father told me that we were poor and needed money,” said Faith, describing the moment she learned she was engaged. She was 11 years old at the time.
Her father explained... Read more
28 February 2017
News
LAMU, Keyna – Aisha Tiro Bahero, 30, knows what it means to stare death in the face. Three years ago, while pregnant with her fifth child, she began to haemorrhage dangerously. “I couldn’t stop the bleeding. No one... Read more
10 October 2016
News
KILIFI, Kenya – Decades ago, Jumwa Kabibu Kai was pregnant with her second child in the small village of Kidutani, Kenya. The area was poor and isolated – her nearest neighbour was 3 kilometres away – and there was no... Read more
17 March 2016
News
UNITED NATIONS, New York – “When I was 12-years old, my family organized a ceremony to transition my sisters and myself to become women,” says Kakenya Ntaiya, a member of Kenya’s Maasai ethnic group. “I was first... Read more
19 February 2016
News
ABJUA, Nigeria – “My father forced me to get married to an older man almost his age. The old man gave him 20 cows. I tried to run away from that old man, but my father warned me that he would beat me to death if he was... Read more
5 October 2015
News
KAKUMA, Kenya – Every once in a while, Joyce Dabor is jolted from sleep by memories of the day she was separated from her children. It was the day they finally escaped the bloody conflict in South Sudan.
Ms. Dabor was... Read more