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 The U.S. singer met the man during a visit to Kibera, one of
Africa's biggest slums, on Saturday and Sunday. She had gone
there to see how she could improve the lives of its residents, a
spokesman said.
"This was an incredibly powerful and disturbing conversation
about the realities of violence in these people's lives," said
Trevor Neilson, who manages Madonna's Raising Malawi and Ray of
Light foundations, and accompanied her on the trip.
"These stories brought Madonna to tears," Neilson told the
Thomson Reuters Foundation.
The "Material Girl" singer, who took her four children to the
east African country, posted a video on Instagram showing them
cleaning streets, clearing gutters and painting murals.
Madonna also met Kenya's First Lady Margaret Kenyatta on Monday
to discuss working with her charity to scale up maternal and
child health programs and initiatives against gender violence.
Kenyatta's charity Beyond Zero, which provides mobile clinics
offering basic health services to Kenyans in remote areas,
recently introduced safe spaces for victims to report gender
based violence.
"Her (Madonna's) basic belief is that no child, no woman should
be attacked anywhere. Period," Neilson said.
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"There needs to be a bright light shone on this problem, which
creates an environment that enables the victims to come forward ...
and forces law enforcement to pursue these things."
Constance Gakonyo, the First Lady's chief of staff, said the two
women discussed ways of working together but they did not go into
detail.
Madonna's welcome in Kenya was in contrast to the criticism she
faced after visiting Malawi in 2013, when she was accused by Malawi
of expecting its government to be forever chained in an "obligation
of gratitude" toward her for adopting two Malawian children and
contributing to the construction of classrooms there.
(Reporting by Neha Wadekar; Editing by Katy Migiro and Katie
Nguyen.; Please credit the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the
charitable arm of Thomson Reuters, that covers humanitarian news,
women’s rights, trafficking, property rights and climate change.
Visit http://news.trust.org to see more stories.)
[© 2016 Thomson Reuters. All rights
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