24-year-old Jacinta Wanjiku is one who has not had the ideal childhood experience, hers filled with traumatizing ordeals dealing with her alcoholic single mother.
Narrating her story to the Standard, Jacinta told of the man she was married off to at 14, her other claiming that he would sponsor her education.
“It was on a Saturday when the man came home. He was a little bit tipsy and he told me that we needed to talk. He told me that he had paid bride price of Sh5,000 and I should be submissive because he was my husband,” recalled Jacinta.
Jacinta then got to escape and went on to work as a house help, then to a club waitress where she met an older man who introduced her to drug abuse.
The same man, who called her ‘daughter’ ended up raping and impregnating her. The ordeal, she says made her suicidal, attempting to take her life thrice but in vain.
Her 5-year-old daughter and faith in God she explained have become her main source of recovery, saying her daughter is the reason she can smile today.