TALKING POINTS BY HON ZIPPORAH KITTONY, FORMER NOMINATED MP, SENATOR AND CHAIR OF THE MAENDELEO YA WANAWAKE ORGANISATION, ON THE OCCASION OF THE INSPIRE ME CONFERENCE 2023 IN ACCRA GHANA ON 12TH – 14TH JULY, 2023.
I wish to express my profound gratitude to organisers of this conference, ABSA Bank’s Women Banking, for the invitation to speak at this year’s conference on Empowering Women’s Economic Growth Together. It is a great honour and privilege.
ABSA, formerly Barclays Bank, is one of the few international banking institutions that have contributed immensely towards the advancement of women economic empowerment in Africa. Through your friendly credit facilities, you have engineered economic and social change in our communities.
Through mentorship and training programs, you have built local capacities of women for enhanced financial accountability and enterprise at individual level, group level, the national level and continent level. For example, in Kenya, Tabitha Karanja of Keroche Breweries, Mary Okello (formerly of Makini Schools and the first African female Branch Manager of Barclays Bank) and many farmers in the Central, Rift Valley and Western Parts of my country have thrived courtesy of support from ABSA. The TIMIZA overdraft facility is also helping small scale traders and startups stock and restock their businesses. Let us clap for them!
Where I come from, people of my kind and age are allowed to speak freely and in a brief manner because it is assumed we have wisdom. So, I will just do that aware of the need to avoid exaggerating the role of an individual in history or progress.
I am also reminded that in one of our communities in Western Kenya, there is a very famous saying, and it is this: “Bury my bones but keep my words”…. “Bury my bones but keep my words.” When we are all gone from the surface of the earth and we won’t be there, what would remain to enable the next generation move forward are the words we make.
It is the reason why I wrote my memoir, “Sheer Grit.” In the book, I have given an account of life and the journey I walked in the women’s movement, confronting barriers to make life better for girls and women, and for the men in their lives.
I believe that an empowered girl or woman is an asset to her family, community, country, and the world. I also believe that doing good to others is not a duty. It is a joy. It makes our own health better and improves our level of happiness.
As a leader, I made effort to empower women and pushed for their recognition and inclusion in decision-making organs. A case in point was the nominations of women East African Legislative Assembly (EALA) where I lobbied for increased representation. However, challenges still remain.
I’ll, therefore, try to reconstruct some key dialogue scenes that require greater focus with an approximation.
- Peace and Security
There can never be development without peace and security. At Independence, the nature of conflicts in Africa was mostly ideologically-driven guerilla warfare. Fight over control of natural resources, and prospects of political power or financial gain, still affect the continent.
I am concerned that many countries are struggling with political and armed conflict, leading to the death, injury and displacement of millions, mostly women and children. You remember in April 2014, the Boko Haram Insurgency group in Nigeria abducted 276 girls from a school in Chibok village in Bormo State. A significant number of the girls remain missing.
In Kenya, unhealthy ethnic competition and careless rhetoric by political players and the media pushed the country into the 2008 Post-Election Violence where more than 1000 people died and close to 600,000 were displaced. Presently, the Sudan is burning, in an unnecessary conflict pitting the National Army and the Rapid Deployment Forces.
We must, therefore, champion peace efforts and engage women to mediate national and inter-communal conflicts. In Sierra Leone and Libera, UN Peacekeeping missions attributed their success to women who held sit-ins in airports and negotiation venues pleading and praying for leaders of warring factions to give peace a chance. Little suggests that military first approach or force can secure peace, making local peacemaking and push for governance reform a credible path in conflict resolution.
My heart bleeds for the women and children who have had to endure the burden of conflict and wars in different parts of the world. Let us do more to consolidate peace, protect civilians and create sustainable conditions for the humanitarian assistance in conflict hot spots.
I was happy when President Uhuru Kenyatta and opposition leader Raila Odinga reconciled and agreed to work together after a bitterly contested 2017 general election. The ‘Handshake’ on March 9, 2018 returned the country to normalcy, setting a good example for other African political leaders with long standing political differences.
- Reforms in Women Prisons
A large number of women in prisons come from impoverished and marginalised backgrounds and are held due to petty nonviolent offences. These women tend to have a history of mental health problems, alcohol and drugs abuse and physical and emotional abuse. Their imprisonment is also related to poverty or love, as the reason for committing the crime. Also, their inability to afford legal representation or pay fines or bail, and the special maternal instinct to protect a child who has committed an offence is a factor. As Primary Caregivers, their imprisonment has a devastating effect on the family.
I wish the Judiciary in Africa considers out-of-court sentencing for women offenders, especially where petty offences are involved and modification of prison facilities to carter for pregnant women and those with children. Let us also protect these women from potential sexual abuse in prisons and empower them in business.
- Women migrant labour
At the same time, consideration should be made to protect and empower women migrant workers, especially female domestic workers to claim their rights and entitlements. Kenya is a leading exporter of migrant labour to the gulf region – Jordan, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Qatar and Kuwait.
Unfortunately, the increasing cases of African women undergoing mistreatment, violence and abuse of various forms, and even death in the hands of their employers away from home have been recorded. Many are overworked, underpaid and physically abused. It looks like modern day slavery.
This calls for an intergovernmental mechanism for protection of migrant workers’ rights, involving non-governmental organisations in the countries where migrant workers from Africa are employed. Harmonisation of labour contracts for migrant workers from Africa, Asia and the Gulf would be a positive step towards enactment of gender-sensitive legislations protecting the rights of migrant workers. Africa should develop and implement gender-sensitive rights-based pre-departure programmes for her people as the populations of female migrants and export labour grows.
- Female Genital Mutilation
According to UNICEF, an estimated 200 million girls in 31 countries have undergone FGM. Kenya alone has an estimated four million survivors of FGM. The practice is widespread despite efforts by governments and non-State actors to curb it. FGM hinders health and development of girls and women. It is seen as a direct ticket to child marriages in pratising communities, hinders girl child education due to growing rates of school drop outs and shatters the lives and dreams of victims.
In some communities, women who were not cut have caved in to pressure from fellow women and opted to be cut as adults. The stigma and pressure is high. I have met a significant number of survivors who are unable to speak about FGM because they had been stigmatised. We must protect girls from the cut and encourage survivors to share their stories. It was never their fault to be cut; it’s a collective guilt of the nation and communities that have held to this cultural practice.
- Marriage and Inheritance
In Kenya, inheritance remains an important mode of property transfer. Unfortunately, statutory and customary laws governing inheritance have, in some cases, disadvantaged widows and orphans from rights to property that they would have otherwise accessed if their husbands or fathers were alive. The customary practices in many communities deny women the right to own, inherit, manage or dispose of their property, but only donate to them secondary rights to land and property through male relatives.
It follows that gender discrimination in inheritance is a violation of human rights, and has a direct correlation to economic vulnerability, asset-stripping and intergenerational transmission of poverty. The existing mechanisms make it difficult for widows and orphans to escape poverty.
I believe that women’s ownership to land significantly improves their welfare, productivity, equality and empowerment. For instance, the step taken by Kenya in implementing the Matrimonial Property Act of 2013 that strengthens women’s land and property rights, and subsequent court rulings that give women – married or not – right to inherit their parents’ property is progressive and a good example for Africa.
I also encourage parents to write WILLS to prevent a growing trend, where children fight over property after the death of their parents. The pain of such disputes is unnecessary.
- Maternal Health
We have a shortage of midwives despite their importance in saving the lives of mothers and babies, yet the WHO and International Confederation of Midwives (ICM) recommended number should be 23 midwives and doctors per population of 10,000.
The world records an estimated 810 maternal deaths every day, one stillbirth every 16 seconds, and 2.4 million newborn deaths each year, while one in five women gives birth without assistance from a skilled heath provider.
An increase in maternal mortality, unintended pregnancies, unsafe abortions and infant mortality coupled by the COVID-19 pandemic-related restrictions and overburdened health systems makes it vital for governments to take steps to meet sexual and reproductive health needs of women and adolescents.
Implementation of Universal Health Coverage and pre-conception care as a package for communities, therefore, will immensely reduce maternal and neonatal mortality and still births in low income neighborhoods.
- Role Models and the Future
Finally, we require role models in our communities. As a nation, we must put women and girls at the heart of everything happening in the communities in order to advance gender equality and women’s empowerment.
CONCLUSION
From the foregoing, you can clearly see there is still more work to be done. The gains we have today did not just happen. It took a lot of commitment and hard work to change the women’s story in our country.
Let us leverage the ground to make it easier for girls and women to access opportunities in life.
The journey has been tortuous; the climb punishing; But, thanks to the efforts of my colleagues in the women’s movement, and the great women who came before me, and, all African women and men of goodwill, this far we have come.
I hope my story, captured in my book, will inspire girls and women to dream bigger, fight harder, and do all in their power, to carry on with the efforts to attain gender empowerment and equity. Together, let us make it happen.
Thank you all and God bless you.