After living in Belgium for eight years, Julie Sharon Muthoni decided to return home to Kenya in September 2014 and was excited to set up a new life there. Two years later, her lifeless body was lying on a cold slab in a morgue in Nairobi.
Muthoni had been dumped at a hospital, alive but barely breathing, by an ex-boyfriend. Staff called her mother, Connie Muuru, who rushed to be with her, but it was too late. Muthoni, whom Muuru affectionately called Sharon, had already passed by the time she arrived.
Muuru told openDemocracy that her daughter had been physically abused by her ex-boyfriend, who relied on her financially. When she tried to leave, he trapped her in the apartment they shared for two weeks and repeatedly assaulted her.
