Nairobi News

A woman in Kipini, Taita Taveta County, has been ordered by elders to pay seven cows as fine after she was found guilty of domestic violence.

Anne Karembo, 33, had been brought before the elders by her sister-in-law, who accused her of battering her husband Yonnah Katana senseless in what has been a routine known to the public.

‘SIMBA JIKE’

Christina Tsuma, who is the accused woman’s sister-in-law, says she heard of the rumours of Karembo’s violence towards her husband for other womane at the market place.

“She was boasting in the market, other women called her ‘simba jike’ while others branded her ‘kifimbo cheza’. So I sought to know why. That’s when I was told she has been narrating how she beats up her husband whenever she feels like,” said Ms Tsuma.

She says it did not occur to her that her brother could intertain such things, as they knew him as an aggressive man, who would not hesitate to instill discipline to his siblings whenever they went wrong.

Tsuma says that before her brother got married he used to settle disputes with their family.

However, Ms Tsuma’s mission to investigate what was happening in her brother’s marriage led to shocking revelations.

On the first night of her mission, she and her friends from the market sneaked behind the couple’s house and heard him being clobbered for cooking the ‘wrong meal’.

“I heard the wife beating him up with a blunt object while asking him why he had cooked fish while she had told him to cook liverd,” said Ms Tsuma.

She would then report her findings to their last born brother, Isaac Katana, who it turns out already knew what was happening to their brother.

He dismissed her, saying that whatever the brother was going through was out of choice.

BEATEN UP

Ms Tsuma would lead another team of women to the homestead the following night, where to their shock they found the woman strangling her husband over allegations of adultery.

It was then that they pushed the door open and wrestled Ms Karembo down. But byy then she had injured the man in the thighs and his behinds. The injuries are believed to have been inflicted with a hot object.

Ms Tsuma and her friends later took her brother to a traditionalist to treat him and exorcise him of witchcraft.

The following day, she reported the issue to the elders who quickly summoned Ms Karembo to answer to the allegations raised against her.

But she denied the claims, saying she had only been playing with her husband and that his injuries were as a result of his various encounters at work.

The husband however remained silent throughout.

But offending woman’s fate was sealed by her own sister who revealed that she had spellbound her husband with a love portion.

The elders, having listened to the case, found the woman guilty of the said charges and ordered her family to pay the husband’s family a fine of seven cows, Sh20,000 and undo the charm in two weeks time.

The woman was warned that failure to meet the demands will attract a public curse and excommunication from village and any other neighbouring villages.

Meanwhile, the family of the man has said they will take him to their grandfather in Rabai, Kilifi County for exorcism.