Kenyan Man Chops Off Wife’s Hands Because of His Own Infertility

A Kenyan man has been arrested after attacking his wife with a machete, slashing her face and head and cutting her hands off, because they failed to bear children throughout their five-year marriage.

Stephen Ngila, 34, who lives in a small village not far from the Kenyan capital of Nairobi, was charged with attempted murder following a brutal attack on his wife Jackline Mwende on July 23, 2016.

According to Mwende, her relations with Nglia lasted for seven years, five of them in marriage. Despite that “the first days of our marriage were happy days,” Mwende said in an interview with LA Times, relationship with the spouse deteriorated after they were not able to conceive.

In 2014, the couple turned to doctors for help. It was a big surprise for both to discover that it was the husband who was sterile.

"So the doctor advised him to attend the clinic, but he never went," Mwende said. "Every time I reminded him to attend the clinic, he would dismiss it. He would say, ‘I will see if I will get time to go,’ then he would never go."

Ngila began to drink heavily and abuse his wife. On the day of the attack, Ngila promised to kill Mwende.

“I saw him, and he told me: ‘Today is your last day,’” she recalled, adding that “he threatened to shut [her] mouth for good" just before the attack.

The day after the attack he was arrested, but refused to acknowledge responsibility. Ngila’s relatives claimed the accusations were wrong and labeled Mwende as a woman of low morals. They suggested that the victim was attacked by business rivals, rather than by the husband. Mwende sells soap, sugar, tea and salt at a small shop.

Ngila, who has become the hated face of domestic violence in Kenya, is in custody awaiting a September 20 court hearing.

Infertility in Kenya is perceived as a disgrace, and women are often blamed, according to the World Health Organization. Some 45 percent of Kenyan women aged 15-49 are victims of domestic violence, according to data from the Gender Violence Recovery Center at Nairobi Women’s Hospital.