My abusive husband came home drunk waving a machete... then he slashed me

AFTER years of brutality, Ann escaped with her life and is now helping other women find their voices in Kenya's Taita Hills.

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MIRIAM DONOHOE reports from Kenya on the rising femicide rates and women's struggle for justice.

Backed by ActionAid Ireland, and supported by Irish donors, women are being offered hope, protection and a path to independence.

HIGH in the spectacular Taita Hills of southeastern Kenya, 50km from the dead heat of the main town of Voie, the air is cooler, the earth richer, and life slower for the communities who live here.

Ann, 52, a grandmother, a mother, and a survivor, has forged a peaceful life in this lush green oasis near Wesu village after suffering years of horrific violence at the hands of her husband.

Her simple and remote two-room brick home is modest but spotless. She proudly shows me her small but flourishing kitchen garden, and her two cows enclosed in a wooden pen.

However, the tranquillity masks the nightmare life that Ann lived for many years, and the physical and psychological scars that still run deep.

Raised in poverty, Ann explains she has no hearing in her left ear because of a vicious beating by her husband.