Kulea recalls her uncle’s incident as one of the worst experiences that made her realise that she needed to stand up for girls.
“My cousin was getting married. She was only 10 years old. I rescued her from the marriage on the day of her wedding. I was with her so I didn’t care even if the wedding ceremony went on. However, I was shocked that her younger sister who was seven years was married in her place,” Kulea recalls.
The man marrying her cousin was actually her uncle.
It was at that point she got her uncle arrested prompting the elders to curse her.
“Every day they walked in the health facility, they were very young girls carrying babies, and I would think they are their sisters but they were their children. Sometimes they would invite me to their weddings yet they are young girls. Anytime I saw the young girls I knew they were at risk. Sometimes I would ambush their weddings and rescue them.”
It became hard to concentrate on her job as a nurse and getting time to save girls who lived hundreds of kilometres away from her place of work.
Together with Gladys Lesirma they partnered in 2012 to start the Samburu Girls Foundation which has so far saved over 1,000 girls.
READ: Josephine Kulea fighting FGM a day at a time
She is counting on support of well-wishers to help her complete a dormitory that can host 300 girls during school holidays to save them from families that are determined to marry them off in exchange of dowry.
