While Nelly Na-Naul Syronka can remember that she never wanted children-with one irreversible solution, 28-year-old Kenya guarantees that she will never become pregnant.
Last October, she took the final step to passing a sterilization procedure known as a tube liga – constant closure of the door for motherhood.
“I feel free”, The organizational development expert tells the BBC, adding that he has guaranteed that her future is already entirely hers.
The surgery prevents pregnancy by blocking a woman's fallopian tubes and is sometimes called “binding your pipes”.
Between 2020 and 2023, approximately 16,000 women in the East African country were subjected to a tubular ligament, according to Kenya Health Ministry.
However, it is not clear how many of these women were childless during the procedure.
Still, D -R Nelly Bosir says that the types of women who go ahead, seeking sterilization in Kenya, are changing.
“Traditionally, the most common candidates for Tubal Ligity were women who already had many children,” the gynecologist, based on Nairobi, told the BBC.
“But now we see more women with less children who choose the procedure.”
Sterilization is only recommended for women who are sure that they do not want to have biological children in the future as the opposite is difficult.
“Doctors usually do not encourage the tubular liga, since the degree of success of the turn is very bad,” said Dr. Bosir.
Although she came from a big family, Da Sironka said she had never felt pressured to start her – though the public norms in Kenya are expecting women to have children.
She credit her father with her position as he encouraged her to focus on education – and gave her a love of reading.
Books from us feminist authors such as Tony Morrison, Angela Davis and Bell Hooks were a revelation.
“I interacted with the life stories of women in which they did not include children at all,” says G -Gae Sironka, who is now the head of Feminists operations in Kenya, an organization that works to end gender violence.
“It made me realize that such a life is possible.”
She has been considering sterilization for years, but decided to move on after saving the money for the surgery and it was in a stable work that allowed her to rest.
It cost her 30,000 Kenyan shillings (£ 190; $ 230) at a private hospital.
Sironka's right believes that women's rights are eroded around the world – especially since women in the United States have lost the constitutional right to abortion in 2022, which also influenced its decision.
This made her fear that a woman's right to control her own body can be eroded elsewhere – and that she should perform the procedure while she can still.
“Within Africa and America, there is an increase in fascism and authoritarian regimes, the perfect example of such is Kenya,” she argued.
When she told her family, this is not a surprise to them, as she has always been very vowel to her desire for life without children.
And as for dating and relationships?
“I still think about it,” she said with his shoulders.
And Mrs. Sironka is not alone in the choice of life without children, provoking traditional expectations for femininity.
There are those in social media who talk openly about their choice not to have children and to undergo sterilization.
Among them is Muthoni Gitau, an interior designer and a podquare.
She shared her tubular ligation in a 30-minute video on YouTube last March, explaining her decision to have the procedure.
“I think the first time I was articulated … (that) I didn't want to have children, I was about 10,” she told the BBC.
Her mother was highly pregnant at the time and a random question about her future jumped into the conversation.
“I saw a possible partner. I saw to travel. I just never saw children,” she said.
Like G -Ja Sironka, the decision of G -Ja Gitau was guided by a strong sentence to live a life according to its own conditions.
After trying the birth control pills she said she had nasty, she sought a more permanent solution.
When she first turned to a doctor for tubal ligation at the age of 23, she was met with resistance.
She was given what she felt like a sermon about how children were a blessing from God.
“He asked me,” What if I met someone who wants children? “She said.
The doctor seemed to have more attention to the “imaginary person” rather than to the actual patient sitting in front of him, she said.
G -Gitau said the dismissal was “breaking the heart”. It was another decade before her wish was finally fulfilled.
D -B Bosir points out that a significant challenge in Kenya is to make medicines shift their thinking and really evaluate the patient's right to make decisions about their health.
“This is associated with our culture, where people believe it is not normal for women to want a tube liga,” she said.
Another Kenyan gynecologist Dr. Kireki Omanva acknowledged that the issue is a matter of debate among colleagues and in medical circles.
“It remains unconvincing,” he told the BBC.
But D -Ja Gitau was not deterred and last year approached another doctor – this time at a non -governmental organization that provides family planning services.
She was armed with a list of bullets with reasons to support her decision and was relieved to find there that there were no discounts: “The doctor was very kind.”
Currently, NEMEMA, she lives happily with her decision, which she believes gives control of her own life.
The 34-year-old is also pleased with the reaction of her video-and she relieves that there was no big reaction.
She says most people have cheered her online, which has seen her confidence growing.
“Women can contribute to the world in so many other ways,” she said.
“It doesn't have to be by raising a whole human being. I am grateful to live in a generation where the choice is something.”