Lead image for When marriage becomes a cage: Inside Kenya's domestic violence crisis.
Angel* is desperate. She has a question for me even before I explain why I am speaking to her. “Can you help me find land far away from Mt Elgon?” she asks, her voice heavy with desperation.
Angel has spent most of her life in a marriage she describes as hell. At 14, while in Class Seven, she says a man in his 20s, locally known in Bungoma County as a “killer”, forced her into marriage. That was in 2006. From the beginning, Angel says, violence became a constant part of her life.
A marriage under the shadow of a panga
She says he constantly threatened her with a panga, kicking, slapping, and hitting her with whatever was within reach. At times, she says, he threatened to cut her into pieces or kill her.
She has fled to her childhood home countless times, taking her six children with her. Yet before a night passes, she says, her husband comes looking for her, vowing to kill both her and her only surviving parent, her mother. Her father died years ago.
Eventually, her mother has told her not to return home for refuge and instead urged her to persevere in the marriage. He is part of the vigilante gang in Mt Elgon, killing and terrorising people,” she says, frightened.
“I never ask him for anything. If he sees me talking to a man, even if it is just to greet him or ask for a job, he will beat me. He always carries a panga and tells me he could kill me with it. I cannot report him. He will kill me.