Benter Akinyi was only 15-years-old when she lost her virginity to a man who also doused her face with acid.
Since then, she has survived three abusive relationships including the latest one where she was assaulted by the father of her two kids, leaving her with a broken tooth and severe injuries.
The matter was reported at Karuri Police Station in Banana Kiambu County under OB 12/03/02/209. The suspect, a man she met after college, is yet to be charged as the matter is still under investigation.
After this incident, Akinyi found herself in the streets of Nairobi and was only rescued by well-wishers who raised funds to put her back on the feet. To add salt to injury, she lost this cash to con men.
The desperate mother of two now wants to sell one of her kidneys to make ends meet and give her kids a better life.
“I have decided to sell my kidney for Sh500,000 because I don’t want my children to be exposed to the life I experienced. Their father assaulted me and I slept on the streets,” she said.
Akinyi was born in Oyugis in a family of four but their mother died when they were barely ten. They became total orphans when their step-father died soon after.
“My brothers who had moved to Eldoret as I stayed back in Oyugis with my uncles were unhappy with my decision to follow them to Eldoret,” she said.
“When I went back to Oyugis, the situation was hostile and that is when I met a man called Felix. After pouring my heart out to him, he agreed to host me for about two weeks as I organised myself.”
Akinyi and Felix had started getting intimate when she met a bishop based in Eldoret.
“I borrowed some money from Felix and traveled to Eldoret to meet this bishop who agreed to sponsor my secondary education,” she said.
To cover up, she told Felix that her uncle was responsible for the scholarship and not the bishop and with no place to call home, she introduced Felix as her official guardian in school.
Unknown to Felix, the bishop got sex in return for school fees and for the next three years when Akinyi was in secondary school, she juggled a sexual relationship with both Felix and the bishop.
“Whenever I went to collect school fees, bishop ensured we had sex. I had no otherwise because he was paying my school fees,” she told Nairobi Journal.
But in Form Three, Felix was angered by Akinyi when she divulged her decision to leave him.
“I wanted to concentrate on studies,” she said. “But one day as we walked down the road, I did not know he was hiding a mug full of sulfuric acid under a piece of cloth. He poured acid on my neck and back, then splashed it on my face.”
Felix was arrested, arraigned in court on June 26, 2008 (in criminal case No. 360 of 2009) charged with grievous harm and jailed for ten years after she unsuccessfully tried to withdraw the case.
After recovery, “a Good Samaritan rescued me from the streets of Oyugis and enrolled me for a community development course at Sacred College in Nairobi,” she recalls
After college, she was getting her life back and even secured a job as house help and rented a room which she shared with a friend.
She would later get internship at Starehe Sub County and later at City Hall’s licensing department.
In 2015, Akinyi met Howard Muiya, a manual worker and a neighbour who loved her the way she is.
She claims that their relationship was smooth until Howard sold a parcel of land and started dating prettier women and regretting why he fell for her.
“I forgave him the first time he assaulted me but when he broke my tooth and left me with serious injuries, I left for the streets,” she said.
Well-wishers raised Sh80, 000 from for the mother of two to start a new life along Thika Road, but on May 8, she lost the money to mobile money transfer con men.