From Love to Exploitation: Shedding Light on the Taboo of Incestuous Relationships

Atieno is an only child born to her parents. 3 years after her birth, Atieno’s mother died. Her maternal relatives took her in and soon she started school. When Atieno clocked 6 years old,  her biological father requested that he be allowed to take his daughter home. Her relatives had no objection and the child was released to him. Atieno lived with her father and continued to go to school while living with her single father in his house. The two were inseparable. She was the apple of her father’s eye.

By age 12, the old women in the village discovered that Atieno was pregnant. But how could this be? Her mother’s milk had hardly dried from her lips and she had not yet even received her first menses. When asked, Atieno revealed that her father had been defiling her since when she was 9. At night, he would ask her to climb on his bed and not sleep on the floor where her mattress was. He would then ask her to remove her clothes and he too would do the same and he would proceed to defile her and promise to buy her new clothes and candy. He also convinced Atieno that whatever they were doing was natural and all fathers did the same thing to their daughters thus Atieno never disclosed what was happening to anyone.

That evening, when Atieno’s father learnt that the village women had discovered his dirty little secret, in the cover of darkness, he took Atieno and fled. According to Atieno, they went to Nairobi and lived in a shanty in a slum where the abuse continued until when she was due and she was taken to Pumwani Maternity where she delivered a baby boy. On the day she gave birth, was the first day Atieno experienced bleeding associated to being woman!

She then went back home where her father instructed her to breastfeed the baby. On the third day according to Atieno, 2 women came to the house where she lay with her son who was also her small brother and took the child away without saying a word. She has never seen or heard of her son ever since.

A month later, Atieno’s father booked for her a country bus back to Busia while he stayed back in Nairobi. Upon arrival back home, a relative escorted Atieno to REEP offices to report the matter. REEP reported the matter to Bumala Police Station but Atieno’s father was never arrested and never returns home. No justice was ever delivered to Atieno.

Meanwhile, because of what had happened between her and her father, her paternal relatives told her that she was no longer welcome in their home. She went back to her maternal relatives who also told her that she had committed a great taboo and was no longer welcome in their home either.

At only the tender age of 13, Atieno was forced to marry in order to survive and fend for herself. One year later, Atieno had another son. However, her in-laws and her husband soon heard of what had happened to Atieno and they sent her away together with her son sighting she was a taboo and would bring bad omen in their home. With no skills and no education, Atieno moved on to yet another man as a wife. There, she had another son and just like in her first marriage, immediately word reached her in-laws that she had lay with her father, she was sent away.  At 15 with 2 children to feed, no home, no source of income and no skill or education, Atieno became homeless. She was forced to do odd jobs including sex work in order to provide for herself and her two sons. Today, Atieno wanders from place to place with her two sons living from hand to mouth and doing anything and everything in order to survive!