Activist Battles Kenyan Tradition of Rape ‘Beading’

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Intricate beaded necklaces are a symbol of the Kenyan nation. But to young Samburu girls, the necklaces are a symbol not of national pride, but something much darker, that can lead to rape, unwanted pregnancies–and even the deaths of newborns, according to activist Josephine Kulea and the Samburu tribe itself.

In “beading,” a close family relative will approach a girl’s parents with red Samburu beads and place the necklace around the girl’s neck.

“Effectively he has booked her,” says Kulea, a member of the Samburu herself. “It is like a (temporary) engagement, and he can then have sex with her.” Girls are also “beaded” as an early marriage promise by non-relatives.

Some girls who are “beaded” are no more than 6 years old. {snip}

Samburu culture dictates that girls be engaged to a relative, she says, and they are allowed to have sex with him. But “they are not allowed to get pregnant and there is no preventative measures,” she says. “At the end of the day, most girls get pregnant . . . and these (infants) end up dying or being killed or being given away.”

When they reach adulthood, Samburu girls will marry outside of their village, but taboo dictates the girls will never be able to marry if they keep their babies resulting from beading.

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Philip Lemantile, the father of 14-year-old Nasuto, says beading is aimed at stopping promiscuity among young girls.

“This is our culture,” he says. “It is part of us. And we have been practicing it, and we accept that these girls should be beaded, and sometimes the girls just get pregnant.”

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