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Wife-hunters target camps
Monday, January 18, 2010
For a refugee girl, marriage to a Kenyan Somali holds the promise of citizenship and a better life, write Boniface Ongeri and Adow Jubat
Hunters of a new kind are stalking the Dadaab refugee camps in Garissa District.
They come in posh four-wheel drive vehicles and by bus, dine at the best restaurants around reeking of wealth and assume a general air of self-satisfied confidence.
Afterwards they venture out to inspect the teeming camps, casually interact with refugees and with ease achieve what they covet most.
They are not interested in helping out with the squalid living conditions or chipping in much-needed help. The hunters are Kenyan Somalis and Somali nationals in the Diaspora and their prey are potential wives among refugees.
Their intentions often leave a trail of broken hearts and relations and elicit grumbles from refugee men. This is a war that the refugee men can hardly fight, let alone win, and many give up long before it starts.
"As if fleeing war in our own country is not enough, the Kenyan Somalis are piling more misery on us by taking our women," a bitter Guled Ismail complains.
"The worst is that they target those already taken or just about to be married," he adds.
Heart-rending
Ismail has reason to be bitter. He was betrothed to a girl when they were young but a well-heeled Kenyan civil servant working for an international aid agency operating in Dadaab came along and snatched her away from him a year after they were married.
"Have they run out of women to marry in Kenya or what?" Ismail poses to a group of youths inside a mud-and-wattle hut.
For an answer he gets sepulchral head shakes from the many youths who have suffered a similar fate
Another refugee says he was devastated when a Kenyan man snatched away his fiancÈe. "Most of us have shelved marriage plans for fear of falling victim to a similar fate," he says. "The worst thing about our Kenyan counterparts is that some arrive in borrowed or hired vehicles to hoodwink the ladies that they are well-to-do," he says.
According to young men, for the last five years the refugee camps have become a centre of attraction from Kenyans. They have been turned into something of a wife market. It is a craze that has even caught the attention of prominent eyeing a second, third or even fourth wife. A Garissa civic leader was the latest to get hooked up with a refugee woman.
According to Noor Ali Ahmed, a Kenyan who runs a lodging in Hagaldera refugee camp, at least 50 marriages involving a Kenyan man and refugee women take place each month. Rarely are marriages between Somali refugee men and Kenyan women recorded. It is not difficult to see why refugee girls would be keen to hitch up with Kenyan suitors or those from the Somali Diaspora.
With marriages formalised, the refugee girl automatically obtains Kenyan citizenship and with it a promise of new and better life. "I won’t hesitate for a second if a Kenyan man proposes to marry me," says Saadia, who asks to be identified only with her first name. "I have been praying for the moment when one will spot me as a potential wife."
"I want to get out of the camp and marriage to a Kenyan or a Somali national living in the Diaspora is the easiest way to escape." she adds.
But what do Kenyan men see in the refugee female that the local girls don’t have? The reasons are varied. A Kenyan who recently returned from Garissa with his ‘catch’ in tow confided that the refugees are not as expensive as their Kenyan counterparts to maintain.
"While a normal wedding involving a local girl would cost over Sh300,000, for a refugee girl you need less than Sh50,000 and you are home and dry," he says.
This is excluding the money one would spend in the endless wooing and courting, birthday gifts and all manner of entertainment before she says, "I do".
Lavish weddings
Recent trends bear him out. Somali marriages rank among the most lavish and expensive in the world.
"Besides purchasing a set of gold rings, necklaces and bracelets for the bride, a potential husband has to furnish his home with state-of-the-art furniture as goodwill for the bride and her parents," says Khalif Abdi Farah, the coordinator for Northern Forum for Democracy.
Then the man has to budget for a number of vehicles and if possible pay for a hotel where the ceremony will be held. Some women will ask for gold ornaments costing upwards of Sh200,000.
By the time one is through with the wedding, it might take them ages before they can recover all the expenses.
Women interviewed said the gold demand is considered as insurance against divorce.
"Divorce is rampant here. Many separate with their wives barely a year into the marriage. Gold is an asset that can be sold to start a business when a man decides to walk out on you," Fouzia, a recently married girl, said.
Coveted citizenship
Considering the lavish weddings expected and the demand for gold in a province that is ranked as the poorest in the country, men say they are forced to eye the refugee camps where there are no tough conditions are attached, says Muhummed Bundid who Crazy Monday bumped into at Dagahaley refugee camp shopping for a wife.
He had been in the camp for two weeks. "It is not difficult here. You just spot her, go to the parents and voila!" he says with a mischievous smile.
"One only requires beddings, utensils and a fire place since you have a Kenyan citizenship which is the most coveted prize," he adds.
It is not uncommon to encounter men in the camps’ alleyways peeping into homesteads looking for a beautiful girl to marry. The task is made easier by the willingness of the girls’ parents.
A refugee parent who gave her daughter’s hand in marriage in these circumstances says it was in the girl’s best interest and those of the family in general. "Which parent wouldn’t want their children to have security and a better life?" she poses.
Kenyan men say the refugees women are obedient, submissive and religious, traits that are fast fading among Kenyan women.
The refugee men say the influx of Kenyans hovering over the camps looking for women has put them in a fix.
When Ismail proposed to one girl, she was quite frank. She said, "You and I are both refugees, so we are incompatible."
They say the hunt reaches a peak in December and July. Marriages involving refugees only are dubbed as UN marriages because the food consumed during the ceremonies is dished out by aid agencies.
Kenyan Somalis aren’t even the greatest headache for refugee men though. "Somalis in the Diaspora are by far the most dreaded competitors. A call from say Canada or Sweden will make the heads of a girl’s parents spin and marriage is hurriedly arranged to the ghost suitor, Ismail says.
"We are fought from all fronts. Our main concern is that most of these marriages don’t last," he observed.
"It leaves us wondering why they would want to snatch away our sweethearts only to abandon them."
