Indigenous women in Kenya fighting against gender-based harmful practices
The room is filled with singing voices, and I am annoyed with myself because I missed the opportunity to press record on my phone. It is moving to hear these voices because they followed a series of tough stories shared by the very women who are now dancing, laughing, smiling and singing loudly and strong.
These strong women spoke about their lives in the very same communities where they work and fight every day for the protection of women and girls and their rights. They oppose the way of doing things as they have always been done, which is never easy to stand up against.
They are part of the Indigenous Women’s Council in Kenya and represent Maasai, Ogiek, Rendille, Pokot, Samburu, among other Indigenous Peoples.
The women talk about the concrete benefits of being part of this project, including, of course, the important financial support to carry out the activities and raise awareness, but also the important recognition they gain for their efforts.
The experience for these women, due to the sensitive nature of their work, will, at best, often be that the communities and families are not very cooperative in changing their harmful practices toward women and girls. At worst, their work will lead to discrimination, being frozen out of their social life and sometimes violence.
The fight against harmful practices is extremely tough because they are such an integrated part of life for the indigenous communities in Kenya.
>> Watch our video of these brave women here
The reality of challenging the status quo
Judy Kipkenda, an Indigenous Ogiek woman, was moved at the meeting when she talked about how much it meant to her to be recognized for her work.
In her Ogiek community of hunters and gatherers, discrimination against women who have not undergone circumcision, or Female Genital Mutilation (FGM), is widespread.
Going to the river to get water, for example, when a woman has not undergone FGM is not looked upon with positive eyes and said to make the river dry out – a difficult accusation to face. And if something happens to you as a woman you have nowhere to go with your claim.
When doing a survey among the women in the community, Judy heard stories of women who had nowhere to report the discrimination and abuse they suffered, and for those who did report their claims to the chief, they were beaten up for doing so.
Another woman told Judy about a friend who is well educated, but due to the immense social pressure, she is seriously considering going through FGM in order to get married.
Administrative obstacles to doing good work
Jane Meriwas, founder and director of the Samburu Women Trust, mentions other structural challenges for doing this work.
When the decision to fund a local organization is made certain requirements follow, such as having a bank account, website, social media accounts, etc., all of which local organisations and people do not have. This is because the work comes from a need to not just accept the situation that women and girls face in their communities, rather than on having all the basic institutional instruments and foundations in place to start and run a formal organisation. And not having those elements in place does not in any way imply that the work is not worth supporting, but can be a stumbling block to receiving funding for this crucial work.
Joyce Lesoito is one such example. She did not have a Facebook account or bank account, but, as she stresses, this did not mean that the work she does is not important or known in the community and beyond. But it is a requirement from donors, even for those funding small grants, to be able to carry out such work.
Joyce feels that the major issue of drought in her community does not get enough attention. Even though drought is becoming part of the international conversation, it is not present so much in northern Kenya, though it is a very real threat there as it's an area that has had no rain for three consecutive years.
This alone has been devastating for the people in the area, but it has also been exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic, all of which has had obvious, widespread effects of hunger and poor health conditions.
Joyce stresses that gender-based violence is closely linked to the drought.
She explains that the status of a pastoralist man is linked to his cattle. When cattle start dying off it brings disparity to the families and the pressure makes domestic violence go up. Likewise, early child marriages and FGM follow as dowries are also intrinsically linked to cattle, where fathers marry off their girls as a way to secure cattle and thus achieve higher status in the community.
Further, the drought also means that pastoralist men travel farther towards greener pastures for their cattle, leaving women behind for longer periods of time without any subsistence, which leads to a rise in prostitution that can also sometimes result in violence.
Finding unity in the fight
The singing ends a day of storytelling and sharing from Kenya, illustrating the most important point of the day: without the support from each other in the network the job is impossible.
When faced with mistrust and discrimination from family and community it is of great importance to be part of a group working towards the same goals.
Luckily, at the end of the meeting, I got a second chance to record these moments, and when the women asked me what I thought of the meeting I had to say that it was exactly that unity between them that struck me the most.
This article was written by Helle Løvstø Severinsen, IWGIA’s Danish Media, Advocacy and Communications Advisor
All photos by Helle Løvstø Severinsen / IWGIA
Tags: Women
