Time right to do more in the uplifting status of women
Kenya this year celebrated the International Women’s Day with the launch of First Lady Margaret Kenyatta’s strategic plan for beyond zero campaign to end maternal and child deaths.
While the importance of this initiative cannot be disputed, the sole focus on it by Kenya’s top leadership denied the country a chance to critically examine what progress has so far been made broadly on women’s rights and what more need to be done to achieve gender equality, including in the three areas of political representation, ownership of land and economic participation.
In 2017, for the first time three women were elected governors and another three as senators. While this has been hailed as a great milestone, we must not forget that this only constitutes six per cent of women in the senate and in governorship, in a country whose population is 52 per cent women.
In Parliament, out of 290 elected members, only 23 are women. At 12 per cent, this is the lowest in the region. And despite the constitutional requirement that two-thirds of parliamentarians cannot be of the same gender, Parliament remains unconstitutionally constituted.
Further, it has been a long and violent journey even for those that have been elected. These women fought against a culture and a patriarchal system that does not believe in women’s leadership, against political parties whose nomination process are not based on merit but favouritism, and on the elections trail, they fought against politically instigated violence. There also is an unacceptable minimisation of women in politics.
Rights to ownership of land
The 2010 Kenyan constitution gives equal rights to men and women, boys and girls to inherit land, but this is just not happening.