PICTURES & VIDEOS: Meet Kenya's karate grannies who fight off rapists in the slums of Nairobi

Welcome to Korogocho slums in Nairobi, Kenya, where grandmothers are learning to defend themselves from rapists through Karate. The martial arts training is called “Cucus,” which means grandmother in local dialect. About 20 women gather weekly, and the oldest of them is 85.

According to the women, some men target and rape older women believing they do not have HIV AIDs. Some also believe sleeping with older women can cleanse them after committing a crime.


"Boys had crazy ideas that after a robbery, when they sleep with an old woman, it's like they are cleansed. The young boys would strangle them. Every time we went to pick up the corpse of an old woman, my heart used to bleed" Sheila Kariuki, a former resident of Korogocho.

         


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