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Against a backdrop of conflict, Marie Louise*, 41, (pictured)left Burundi in 2015 with her husband and three kids. Hers was a journey of frustration and pain. 

Their arrival in neighbouring Rwanda seemed like the light at the end of the tunnel, until even that was switched off in 2017 when her husband died of cancer.

That’s when her problems started. Her in-laws wanted to take both of her kids and land. She had no choice but to leave Rwanda and seek a better life in Kenya. Little did she know what was in store for her. 

Her stay in Nairobi was filled with trips to agencies—national and international—in charge of refugees for registration.

After one of these trips, she received a phone call informing her that a cousin from Burundi has arrived in Nairobi and was looking for her.

Marie Louise, thinking nothing sinister, went to the meeting point, only to be abducted by a woman accompanied by three men.

Blindfolded

“The moment they saw me, they blindfolded me and took me to a house. All I can remember is that house had weapons. They then beat me up, demanding that I hand over my children and title deed,” she says.

She claimed to have lost the documents, only to be threatened with death. “After beating me up, one of the men said since my husband was dead, he was going to remind me of him. Then they raped me,” she adds. 

Marie Louise regained consciousness three days later at a hospital. “I remember asking the nurses what I was doing there. They told me I was not feeling well. They later released me and registered me as an outpatient. I was unable to return to the hospital for lack of funds,” she adds.  

Terrible news awaited her when she got home. The house she was staying in had been demolished as part of Kenya Power project and she had no idea where her three daughters were. 

“It was four months before I saw my daughters again,” she says, after explaining the frustration of moving from one office to the other in search of protection and support.

She heard about the MSF Mathare Centre from Red Cross, where she had gone for help in finding her children. Her trips to the police station were just as futile.

“At one police station, they told me without registration papers, they cannot help me. The next police station, I got an OB number for rape and disappearance of my children,” she says. 

The medical report she showed People Daily showsMarie Louise suffered a bloody vagina, old multiple tears on her hymen and haemorrhoids. At the MSF centre, she was treated for physical pain and swelling and then referred to Mama Lucy Hospital for fibroid treatment.

Marie Louise is yet to be registered as a refugee in Kenya.

She makes the bulk of vulnerable groups facing heightened risks of sexual violence and exploitation; not only does she not have a means of survival, her unregistered status makes it difficult for her to access necessary services.

Unregistered status

“As part of our social work, we handle non-medical issues in refugee cases. This include protection, insecurity and lack of registration by the Refugee Affairs Secretariat, especially with the new method of registering refugees,” a social worker at MSF Mathare clinic, Mkabane Moses Juma, says.

Across the world, female refugees are forced to “take steps to mitigate the high risks they expect to face”, with the UN Refugee Agency saying some women took birth control pills to avoid  pregnancy from rape.

The UN has been raising concerns over the increasing cases of rape in conflict situations, calling countries to protect vulnerable people in such situations.