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"Maybe it will help if they see that I am so unhappy now," she said. "The problem is, the girls know already that sometimes sex is the only way."

'Don't Be Like Me'

In the cramped, two-room shelter, Babibye was tired and worried. The night before, Prossy and another girl, Justine Nambi, had argued over who was taking up too much room in their bed at night and ended up hitting each other.

"That's what happens when 11 children sleep shoulder-to-shoulder with no air," Babibye said in dismay. She sat the two girls down for a serious talk.

She told them how she once dreamed of being a lawyer. When she was 14, she watched a court hearing after a man had beaten one of her female relatives.

"The lawyers looked so smart," she said. "I wanted to be like them."

But within a year, she became restless and went off with a man. She never became a lawyer, Babibye said wistfully. She married, but her husband took three other wives. He rarely comes to visit now.

"Don't be like me," she said to Prossy and Justine. "I am trying to raise you right."

The next day, the house was busy. The children swept the compound, fetched water and made tea. In the afternoon, Prossy said she wanted to go out. But Babibye held her back.

"Just stay here," she said, with her hand on the girl's thin back. "You can wait and apply one day for the virgin scholarship."

Then she turned to Anatolius, who was back for a second visit, and asked if he could buy the girls a sewing machine. "Just in case," she said.