Women in Kenya

Between 1929 and 1932, Protestant missionaries campaigned against the practice of female genital mutilation , and were met with resistance primarily by the Kikuyu.[8] Lynn M. Thomas, an American historian, writes that during the female circumcision controversy, the issue of female genital mutilation became a focal point of the movement campaigning for independence from British rule, and a test of loyalty—either to the Christian churches of the missionaries, or to the Kikuyu Central Association, the largest association of the Kikuyu people.[8]

The extent of education women received in pre-colonial Kenya was how to do the jobs women had been doing for years such as wife, caregiver, child birth and housekeeping. Playing this role gave many Kenyan women a sense of identity which most women cherished. During and after colonial rule, however, educating the youth became a more commonly accepted idea. Although there was access to education, it was difficult for Kenyan children, especially girls, to receive a formal education simply because parents did not find it necessary to send their daughters to school. The education that young girls were receiving was similar to that of what they would learn from their mothers in the pre-colonial era. That included skills such as child care and sewing and if the girls were lucky, they would be taught how to read and write. In the late 1900s it became more common for a girl to receive a primary education, but men, on the other hand, were going off to earn degrees and get jobs whereas women were staying at home taking care of the home.[6]

By the 1990s, almost 50% of the students attending primary schools in Kenya were girls. This large jump occurred over time due to Kenya's independence and the development of easier accessible public primary schools throughout Kenya. The Kenyan government has put a larger focus on educating the youth because they believe that it will lead to an overall more prosperous country. According to the Republic of Kenya Embassy's website, they concluded, "...it has been established that by providing primary education to women, a society is able to hasten its development."[9]

The situation for Kenyan girls in secondary school is slightly different than how it was for primary school. At the time of Independence, about 32% of enrollment in Kenyan secondary schools was young women and 68% young men. Over time, those numbers have gone up, but in the most recent studies, it is still 40% to 60% favoring young men attending secondary schools in Kenya. This gap can be explained by the gap between schools available for boys and girls. In 1968 in Kenya, there were 148 government funded primary schools for boys, 61 government funded secondary schools for girls, and 28 co-ed secondary schools funded by the government. Because young men in Kenya have more than twice the number of schools available for them to attend than their female counterparts, many more boys end up going to school because it is easier for them to access secondary schooling. More secondary schools have been built in Kenya since 1968, but that large gap still remains.[6]

Kenyan women's rights to own and inherit property are challenged, threatened and suppressed by customs, laws, and individuals, such as government officials. Many leaders, both of the nation and individual households, believe women to be incompetent to manage land. This is juxtaposed by the fact that, in Africa, women constitute 70–90 percent of the agricultural labor force, meaning that they manage most of the lands already, but are made unable to own any. In addition, African women receive about 7% of agricultural extension services and 10% of credit for small-farmers.[10]

When women are widowed, they are often evicted from the lands and houses on which they reside, as they belonged to the husband, and women are not given any rights to the land. If a husband dies from an AIDS-related illness, wives are more often evicted with more vigor, as she is blamed for his death. Once evicted, some women end up begging for water and food, living in dangerous slums, and sleeping on cardboard with their children, who are also forced to leave school.[10]

Widows are entitled to none of their husband's estate or assets when they die, and so women are often left virtually powerless under the rules of their in-laws. Often the in-laws feel entitled to do whatever they will with their late sons wives, as they consider the dowry paid for the marriage to be an act of purchasing the woman.[10]

Divorced women often leave marriages with no property or items at all. It is common for them to return to live with their parents.[10]

Widows and separated women with HIV often have a hard time receiving medical care, as they have no health insurance and no means of income, especially when their lands and all their possessions are taken from them.[10]

In the 2010 constitution, gender discrimination in law, customs, and traditional authorities were officially prohibited. In 2011, a court case determined married women have the rights to inherit their parents' land. However, these practices are often not enforced. When women reach out to police and other officials for aid regarding abuse or infractions against their rights to property, they are commonly told to pay a bribe.[10]

A 2009 publication by the World Bank, the Food and Agriculture Organization, and the International Fund for Agricultural Development found that improving women's land rights would grow agricultural output and better nutritional intake and child schooling.[10]

The International Center for Research on Women (ICRW) found a large disparity between the rates of domestic violence against women who held property and those who did not. The study found that 49% of women with no property had experienced violence from a partner or family member, as compared to 7% of those with land and a house.[10]

Many clans in Kenya, along with other locations in Eastern Africa, believe that the spirit of a widow's late husband stays with her body. To rid the body of the purported haunting, widow's in-laws will pay men from outside the clan to rape the widow without a condom. Some of these men, called "cleansers" are paid as little as USD$6. As HIV/AIDS continues to be a crisis, with an exceptional growth in African nations, widows fear they will contract HIV during these forced encounters. Some of the men who force the acts worry too; as one "cleanser" who has performed the act on 75 different women told the Human Rights Watch: "I don't use condoms with the women. It must be body to body. I must put sperm in her... If no sperm comes out, she is not inherited... I don't do anything to stop pregnancy... I've heard about how you get AIDS. I'm getting scared... There are inheritors who are infected with HIV. They don't use condoms."

Throughout Kenya, there is also a common practice of "wife inheritance" where, after the death of their husbands, widows are raped by an outsider to be considered "cleansed", and then are taken as the wife of one of her late-husband's family members. This is often done in polygamous families, so the wife will have unprotected intercourse with a stranger and a man with multiple other wives who also do not use protection.

In one of the provinces where both ritual "cleansing" and wife inheritance are common, the population's rate of HIV prevalence is at about 14%.

Women who are subjected to domestic violence often have a difficult or impossible time negotiating condom use, and then have higher risks of unwanted pregnancies and sexually transmitted infections (STIs), including HIV.

One of the most notable Kenyans was Prof. Wangari Maathai, an activist and politician. Wangari Maathai was the first African woman to receive the Nobel Peace Prize for her "contribution to sustainable development, democracy and peace."[12] She was also elected a member of the Kenyan parliament and worked in Kenyan politics for over two decades which was extremely threatening to her male counterparts who she surpassed throughout her time working in the Kenyan Government.[7] As Assistant Minister for the Environment in Mwai Kibaki's first-term, she embarked on several campaigns to protect the environment and reduce government wastage. She, for example, changed how government reports were presented, urging for a smaller font, less space, and use of both sides of the printing paper.

Maathai was not directly a feminist activist, but an environmental activist who inspired other women in Kenya and around the world to go into politics and activism.[13] Maathai was also considered to be a "bottom-up" worker as opposed to the "top-down" ruling that Kenya was so accustomed to having for decades past. This was another way she was able to inspire women and other minority groups who were silenced by the government in the past.[14]

Grassroots activism is an important social force in Kenya, especially for women and is not just a modern phenomenon.[15] Campaigns led by Kenya women have included issues such as FGM, women's political participation and gender-based violence.[16][17][18] Leading protests can put activists like Wanjeri Nderu at risk of violence.[19] Human rights campaigner Philo Ikonya fled to Norway after being beaten by police.[20] Despite this Kenya women activists have won international awards for their efforts: Fatuma Abdulkadir Adan was awarded the Stuttgart Peace Prize;[21] Dekha Ibrahim Abdi was awarded several prizes for her work on peace and reconciliation in Kenya before her 2011 death.[22]