When I was in my early twenties, “in the town”In the far west of Kenya, Jacinta Nafula became pregnant by her boyfriend. The father of her son, baptized Richard, went to work in the capital, she met him there and they married. And then one day, he disappeared. It’s not that he died, he just moved on. “He married another woman.”This modest hairdresser’s braider seriously tells us that, due to non-payment of rent, she found herself on the street for a time. And add, in the same tone: “They live here in Nairobi. » Once, just once, Jacinta went to ask him for a little help, despite the“shame”. “When he saw me, he ran away.”, recalls Richard’s mother, who is now 13 years old and who never saw his father again.
During Covid-19, a dark time for informal workers, Jacinta met a church musician. “A man of God who didn’t drink and wasn’t going to bother me”He continues, mentioning in veiled words the scourge of domestic violence. He promises her a family, a comfortable life. He even flies it to Mombasa in the Indian Ocean. “It was when I got pregnant that I saw his true face.”concludes. Their baby, Prince, was 3 months old when the musician also disappeared. Lately, he sometimes comes to the hairdresser armed with a piece of cake and a soft drink, which delights the 3-year-old. Never anything else.
“Today’s men no longer want responsibilities”Jacinta laments before the approving look of a neighbor who came to help her translate Swahili. Around it, in the popular neighborhood of Umoja, “There are many single motherscontinues Peninah Nguli. Especially in your generation.insists this older woman, a single mother of an 18-year-old boy. Most men are not there. »
“Kidnapping” of the patriarchy
Kenya faces a “single parenthood crisis”as the newspaper already wrote seven years ago The standard (neutral term whose hypocrisy the article points out, the proportion of single parents being minimal). In 2022, the former president of this Christian country was alarmed by the fact that single-parent families had increased from 25% to 38% in ten years. “If left unchecked, this trend will destroy Kenya’s fundamental identity and cause immense harm to the most vulnerable and valuable members of our society – our children.”declared Uhuru Kenyatta during an address to the nation.
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