Domestic violence cases are on the rise in Kibera slums with low income levels listed as the main cause of disagreements in most families.
This is according to LiveKind, an emergency support organisation for victims of Gender Based Violence (GBV) and child abuse.
The Kibera-based organisation has confirmed that most cases reported normally emanate from financial differences that arise between couples with women suffering the most in the process.
“The rate of domestic violence is increasing in the slums especially in Kibera because of low income. The typical example is where husband demands money from the wife failure to which she is abused," said Dickson Obiye, LiveKind chairman in an exclusive interview on Tuesday.
"If a family is not financially stable, both parents have to step out to fetch cash; in the process the wife may earn more than the husband, a scenario that in most cases is not tolerated by many men around,” he explained.
Obiye says that failure by couples to agree on expenditure may lead to quarrels which eventual results to fights.
“Most men take it as disrespect when their wives refuse to disclose their earnings and, therefore, they are forced to react based on the perception that its men who control finances in the family. In most cases this results to fights as women feel demeaned by their husbands,” said Obiye.
The difference in earnings, Obiye says, can create a sense of inferiority and insecurity for both the man and wife.
Obiye says that it is the high time slum dwellers awake to the reality that a family can thrive on common understanding and mutual management of finances.
“It should not be a competition of who earns more than the other or who call the shots in the family. If both parents pool together their income with consent, there shall be peaceful coexistence. Openness is the key even if the income is low,” he advised.
Recently there have been cases of deaths in Kibera that have been indirectly related to domestic violence.
The most recent incident was witnessed in Gatwekera village where a man allegedly hanged himself after his wife abandoned him for another man. It later emerged that the deceased was mistreating his wife over alleged disrespect from the woman regarding his low income.