Who will come to our rescue?

There is a small town in Kisumu County where women get up at 2am, while you and I sleep, to fetch water.

Water is so scarce that these women walk more than three kilometres to get to the nearest borehole, and when they get there hours later, they might not get to fetch water until noon, thanks to the long snake of a queue they are likely to find. Even more disheartening is that some of these women are waylaid on this treacherous trip and raped.

This town is called Awasi, and Christine Ainga is one of the unfortunate women who call this impoverished area home. The 30-year-old mother-of-four was raped early this year on her way to fetch water. It was on a Sunday and she was with four women who, like her, were on their way to fetch water. It was a few minutes past 2am.

“We had been walking for about 40 minutes when a group of armed men emerged from the bushes and confronted us.”

Defenceless, Ainga was raped by four men, who also took the money she had carried to buy water, as well as the containers she had strapped on her back. Her friends too were attacked and robbed. Ainga says that they reported the matter to the police, but their attackers, whom they could not identify, were never arrested.

Too traumatised, Ainga swore never to go back to the water point, but less than a month later, and still nursing emotional wounds from the attack, she was back to making the inevitable trek.

“I was buying water from the vendors, but I just could not afford it,” she says.

FREE WATER

A 20-litre jerrycan costs Sh5 from the source, but if a vendor brings it to your doorstep, it costs Sh20, out of reach for a woman like Ainga, who makes a living selling chips by the roadside.  On a good day, she makes Sh150, but when business is slow, she takes home as little as Sh50. She could make the trip during the day, but that would mean giving up her business, since she would queue at the water point the whole day.

A poorly kept secret here is that a woman can save herself the dangerous journey at that ungodly hour by offering the water vendors sexual favours. Many women take this option.

Says Ainga, “It is nothing out of the ordinary here. Some water vendors approach the women and openly tell them that if they sleep with them, they will deliver water at no cost.”

Saying “No” is expensive — the spurned vendor will double the cost of the water or refuse to sell it to the woman.

Ainga says that after the rape, several water vendors shamelessly approached her with their indecent proposal. Like predators, they had sensed how desperate she was, but she turned them down.

The fact is that many women sell their bodies for water, a worrying situation that is fuelling the rise of HIV infection in this region.

Ainga’s case is not unique, no, there are many more untold stories of women who are raped as they go in search of this vital commodity. The women we interviewed said that at times, when they refuse to have sex with the vendors, the men lie in wait and rape the women who rejected them as they go to fetch water.

The irony is that Awasi is the second biggest town in Kisumu County. One would, therefore, assume that a basic necessity such as water would be the last thing residents are worried about, yet here, water has been a perennial problem for a long time, with only one water point serving the entire town.

WHAT SAFETY?

Irene Atieno has her own story of water-related anguish to tell. After the death of her husband in 2012, she got a job as a cook in one of the schools in Awasi. Due to the long distance from her home to the school, she decided to get a house nearby, unaware of the pressing water problem.

She was soon to learn that women here wake up many hours before cockcrow to fetch water. On her maiden trip to the water point, Atieno went back home empty-handed when a man ordered her to return to her house, promising to bring her water later in the day. When she hesitated, the man threatened to harm her if she did not do as she was told. Atieno had heard rumours that water vendors demanded sex from women in exchange for water and knew that this is what the man wanted. Since she did not want to provoke the man, and it was still dark, she went back to her house.

“I decided to go for water in the morning when it was safer, getting back home late in the evening,” she says.

At around 11pm, however, when she was just about to go to bed, she heard a knock. When she opened the door, a man was standing there with four jerrycans of water. Alarmed, Atieno informed him that she had water, but the man insisted that he had fetched the water for her and that he would not leave until she accepted it. When she tried to close the door, he informed her that he would not leave until she paid him. Desperate for him to leave, she handed him Sh100, the only money she had. He left, though reluctantly.

A few days later, the same man returned with his unsolicited offer of water. This time round, she screamed for help, and to her relief, her neighbours came and chased him away.

Atieno, who has escaped attempted rape twice (the first time she was rescued by policemen on patrol the second by a priest who heard her scream), says such cases happen all the time.

“I know other women whom these men force themselves on. Eventually, some end up giving in. Unfortunately, once you start, stopping is difficult.”

Giving the water vendors sexual favours also means that besides having water delivered for you, you are also assured of escort to the water point. Such a vendor will also jump the queue on behalf of the woman, much to the chagrin of those before her.

“Some of these men intimidate us and get ahead of us — what can you do?” Atieno asks.

RISKS GALORE

Rape is not the only suffering that these women are exposed to. Due to the bitter cold at that time of the day, the women often fall ill.

Millicent Auma, a mother-of-two, stopped going to the water point in the wee hours when she was diagnosed with pneumonia.

“It is very cold, and a sweater or jacket is not enough to keep the cold away. Many of us carry blankets, which are an extra load, but even that is not enough to keep the cold away.”

Though it is a struggle, Auma, who has a small retail shop, has contracted a vendor to bring her water every day.

The water point, a necessity, as well as a source of pain for the women here, is run by Awasi Widows’ Group. Jenipher Atieno, a member of the group, says that initially, the borehole was for the domestic use of the members. When they realised how big the water problem was in the area, they decided to start selling the water.

“Scores of women would come begging for water daily. A few months later, we decided to start selling it.”

Jenipher, who manages the water point, is aware of what goes on.

“It is true that women sell their bodies for water here,” she says, with a sad shake of the head.

If they are not waylaid by rapists, water vendors, she says, take shameless advantage of the dire lack of water to sexually exploit the women.

“Once in a while, I see a woman walk away from the queue, only to reappear an hour later with a vendor who had been ahead of the queue, who then goes ahead and fetches water for her. Do you need to be told what took place?”

She claims that most engage in unsafe sex, a factor that she attributes to the rapid spread of HIV.

 “I have been selling water since 2008 and I can tell you that the rate at which these young men and women are dying is shocking.”

Maurice Otieno, one of the water vendors, is candid about the dubious exchange that takes place.

“There is no way we can wake up that early and walk for a long distance to fetch water, and then give it out for free — they (women) have to talk to us nicely. I usually get to the water point at 1am, yet I might end up getting served at 9am,” he points out.

According to a report by the Commission on Revenue Allocation released last year, and which aimed to identify the counties that are most affected by HIV/Aids, Homa Bay and Kisumu come second and third respectively, after Nairobi, with the former having 150,000 people living with HIV/Aids and the latter 113,000.

The women of Awasi are in distress, and have been for a long time; who will come to their rescue?