Beautiful to look at? Not for this girl

• Beads are fascinating for the visitor, but for the girls of Samburu they signify bondage

Visitors often marvel at the beauty of the colourful beads worn by women in the Samburu community. For Rampaini Letereuwa, however, the red beads that adorn her neck are a source of big trouble.

The 13-year-old is pregnant, and her relatives intend to kill the baby when it is born this month.

“I know my baby will be thrown away into the forest to die or be killed like many others who have been subjected to a similar fate,” said Letereuwa, through an interpreter at her parents’ home near ol Donyiro market in Isiolo district.

She has never been to school and, like some other girls her age or even younger, Letereuwa is a “child bride,” having been temporarily married off to a Samburu warrior (moran) in a traditional practice known as aishontoyie saen (beading).

Bead colours

Once a girl is beaded, which literally means being adorned with necklaces by a moran, her parents build her a house where the moran, usually a relative, is allowed to engage in sexual activity with her.

Different beads carry different meanings. Engaged girls wear red beads.

Girls who are not engaged and those who are married wear beads of mixed colours. White beads signify purity and health, black means hardship while orange plus yellow is a sign of hospitality.

“A certain colour of beads is used by a moran to temporarily marry a girl from his clan,” says councillor Moses Lerosion of ol Donyiro ward.

He adds: “When a girl is beaded, she is not supposed to become pregnant because she is not circumcised and our community believes that an uncircumcised woman should not give birth.”

The practice of Female Genital Mutilation remains prevalent within the Samburu community.

The necklaces to bead the girls cost about Sh10,000 and are normally purchased in Nairobi shops.

Great respect

“The morans normally conduct raids and steal animals from neighbouring communities to enable them raise money to buy the beads,” Peter Lekurtut, the Kipsing ward councillor, said.

An ol Donyiro elder, Loitipitip Lemantile, 69, says a majority of parents in the area still consider the beading of their daughters by morans as a show of great respect.

“After successful raids, the moran could give his in-laws cattle and give the girl’s mother nyiri nyiri (special meat boiled in fat),” explains Mr Lemantile.

He added that the beaded girl is always free to get married to any other suitor because in all cases, the girl and the moran are from the same clan and marriage is prohibited.

Ms Orietta Lemungesi, a woman leader, says an impregnated girl is seen as an outcast, leading to induced abortion using crude methods such as pressing the womb with rough objects, the knees and elbows.