Tears in our tea

 By Maria Njoroge

Dear reader, let it be known that I do not intend to be polite in this article. I am a woman and I am angry.  Being a woman is neither here nor there in this case. The first thing that should cross your mind when you hear another suffer is: who could do that to another human being? Someone does not have to be related to you by blood to deserve kindness or consideration. My heart breaks for the women who have gone through sexual abuse in the hands of their leaders. The recent expose on  tea farming done by BBC left me in tears. I am a woman exiting college, the fear of what lurks in the shadows makes me afraid of the dark.

Jermiah  Kosgei,John Chebochok , Samuel Yebei, John Ascara , I hope you get to experience hell even as you live . Its only four names that came to light. Each of you has been a bystander and a perpetrator of sexual violence and crimes against women for thirty years. You do not deserve to be leader, you do not have any business mingling with society. I hope you see the highest walls of prison. I hope you get to sit with your thoughts and they gnaw at you and there is nothing you can do about them.

I hope the noises in your heads are loud.I hope its muffled voices from the many women whose lives you ruined. I hope they play in your minds for the rest of your lives and never quietens. I hope no one shows you a shred of tenderness you damned predators. I hope there is no ounce of compassion on the jury that tries your case.  I hope like the way sand fizzles out of the hour glass, the last glimmer of home and hope fades as you hear the names of your victims replaying in your minds.

John Chobochok.You are uncultured in every way one can think of. We are glad you names came to light. You are inhumane and have causes unimaginable suffering. You have infected many with HIV , I hope you get the 15 years on top of the 30 years .It would be symbolic considering that is how long you had to make a difference . Instead, you preyed on women for three decades. They could say no love has been lost between you and your employees, but tell me this John, have you ever had of the word consent?

Jeremiah , your actions apale me . I abbor how you reduced the women who came to you for help to nothing . You made them need you. 15,000 shillings at the cost of their mental peace ? How do you sleep at night? How do you rest knowing they got pregnant and procured abortions? That their families and homes were broken because you backed them into a corner?

I have no kind words for Asava. He stood and watched. A pedophile, a molester and an enabler. How can a leader and a supervisor talk about crimes committed against another human with a straight face? How can he say that the company name needed to be kept clean? How could he ? How? How could the gender office tell “kate” that she needed to stand firm in her principles? How was any of it her fault.? How is anything that befalls victims of abuse their fault?

This is the court of public opinion. I have been presiding. I declare them all guilty. All who knew about it and said nothing. All who watched the lived of the women around them crumble. I hope there is a prison in this world for you kind of species. The ones we have are for humans. You , at Finlay, Unilever and all bystanders of violence, you are definitely not human.