How women scare men with fake pregnancies to con stingy lovers

Nothing scares a man like a “I have missed my periods” text message from a woman. It is even worse if the message is from your neighbour’s house girl, a random estate lady whom you have been having fun with or even a hot good time girl whom you don’t intend to marry. The moment such women say they are pregnant, men panic and one thing that comes on their minds is: “Damn it! why can’t she just say she wants to abort!”Aware of the fact that men are scared of being fathers, some sly women now use fake pregnancies to rob them blind.

Why many fall for the trick

Millicent*31, who is now married, confesses of being among the women who have used this trick to con stingy boyfriends and ‘sponsors’ whom they dated back in college. Men dread accompanying such women to clinics for tests or abortions. Others consider abortion a ‘womanly’ thing whose gory details they wouldn’t want to be bothered with. Some men, like Moseti, fear that thewomen can die while at it, landing them in trouble with authorities, seeing as it’s illegal. “She whined, complaining that she needs Sh20,000 and nothing less. I tried telling her I know a place where it would only cost her Sh5,000, but she told me off. She claimed she can’t go to a dingy backstreet clinic to get infections or die while procuring an abortion,” narrates the 40-year-old self-employed graphics designer.

Even though he doesn’t approve of abortion, he says he had to do it because the circumstances called for it. However, the annoying bit about it is that he discovered later through a friend that she wasn’t pregnant. The money was apparently used to fund a weekend treat for herself and her buddies in Mombasa.

Some women, knowing their partners are legally married, go further to threaten telling their wives that they were impregnated. Campus girls and hustlers are very notorious for this strategy, especially when dealing with moneyed but stingy men; or generally the married types with high social standing like pastors, politicians or university lecturers. Ladies use this extortion strategy to milk men who aren’t too generous yet they are loaded. Some women would make such claims to more than one man and end up with a windfall. Pregnancy scares have also been termed as a kind of tactic to end an affair in style, when things get frosty. Such extorted money is a ‘send-off package,’ since many relationships end after the money has changed hands. But some men are wiser. Henry Masisa, 31, had at some point received such a message from the girl she had parted ways with. What, however, puzzled him was the veracity of the information seeing that he had cautiously used a condom during their last sexual encounter.

While condemning this act, Beatrice Komen, a 48-year-old grocer, warns ladies to concentrate on bettering themselves and avoid such unsavoury ways of making money. “Anybody who extorts money under false pretence is a con. This kind of trick to make money is shameful,” she says.

She advises young women on the need to date men genuinely rather than expose themselves to dangers of dating married men or the rich just for materialistic gain.