http://erepository.uonbi.ac.ke/handle/11295/161667 Authored by the UoN, African Women’s Studies Centre (AWSC), Women’s Economic Empowerment Hub (2022) program, funded by Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF) Wed, 08 Apr 2026 20:56:53 GMT 2026-04-08T20:56:53Z http://erepository.uonbi.ac.ke/handle/11295/162006 Women’s Participation in Constitution-Making Process in Kenya (S.3, Part 16) AWSC, Women's Economic Empowerment Hub; Kimani, Lydia Wanjiru This 34minutes 11seconds–long video was recorded in June 2017. Lydia Kimani was born and educated in Embu. Her father was a District Officer and later a Provincial Commissioner while her mother was a member of the Maendeleo ya Wanawake Organization (MYWO). After completing her secondary studies, she went to pursue her university studies at Michigan State University, USA. When she returned to Kenya, Mrs Jane Kiano asked her to contest for the position of Chairperson of MYWO and she was elected. She was elected and served in that capacity for 17 years. In 1992, she got interested in politics and vied for the Manyatta Parliamentary seat. The election was marred with irregularities coming third in the race. She went to court but she lost the case. She continued working for women in Embu where she continued to empower women by teaching them civic education. She pushed for women in the DDC where she was a member. When opportunities arose such as the appointment of chiefs, she would ask women to apply and some were appointed. In addition to chiefs, Lydia helped women get into other leadership positions such as on local boards. Lydia also initiated a number of projects in an effort to promote women’s economic empowerment. These projects included the Embu Women’s SACCO but later collapsed due to lack of leadership, founded a women’s group that later bought a piece of land, a heifer project which helped in increasing the production of milk in Embu, and a credit scheme that enabled women to get into small businesses and get money to provide for their families including educating their children. Lydia was also active politically. She is a member of KANU and she was among those who pushed for the officials and delegates to be elected from the grassroots. When ODM was formed, she saw in it a party that stood for representation and issues. She was elected ODM deputy secretary general but on realization that she was not achieving anything as a representative of the Central region, she resigned. During her days’, women’s leadership was not easy, but she encouraged women to persist so as to bring about change. Lydia notes that there are many gains in the 2010 Constitution of Kenya, however, for women to realize these gains, there is a need for proper coordination and collaboration among the women’s organizations. Short Video Documentary Sun, 01 Jan 2017 00:00:00 GMT http://erepository.uonbi.ac.ke/handle/11295/162006 2017-01-01T00:00:00Z http://erepository.uonbi.ac.ke/handle/11295/162005 Women’s Participation in Constitution-Making Process in Kenya (S.3, Part 15) AWSC, Women's Economic Empowerment Hub; Owour, Effie This 1hour 36minutes 48seconds–long video was recorded in June 2017. Lady Justice Effie Owour was born in a family where her father was an educationist and the mother was a midwife at King George, now Kenyatta National Hospital. After completing her primary school, she joined Butere High School during the colonial era. Afterwards, she joined Alliance Girls for A-Level studies. The local universities at the time were confined to careers linked to gender roles among them nursing, teaching and secretarial work. Effie realized that she was not cut for these careers as she wanted to be a lawyer. Women who wanted to venture into other careers had to pursue their studies out of the country. Her father encouraged her to pursue her dream and through his intervention, she joined Dar es Salaam University, in 1964, to study law. After completing these studies, she returned to Kenya. She got a job at the AGs office in Mombasa as a registrar of marriages, birth registrations etc. It is then that she realized there was an issue as a woman would marry one man this month and come back after a month marrying another man. This aroused her curiosity to know what was happening. Later she joined the AGs prosecution and she started climbing the ranks and being a trailblazer in the Judicially till she was a judge in 1985. She was the first female judge and there were many gender issues to deal with including the title of her position, dress code, and lack of facilities such as a ladies' washroom. Eventually, they were sorted out. In 1998, she was appointed the first female judge in the Court of Appeal. Gender roles were also a challenge as she had to travel away from home while she still had to take care of her children. At a time when women were not supposed to divorce, she realized she was not getting along well with her husband. She decided to divorce him. She remarried but unfortunately, her second husband passed away. The Luo in-laws were determined to get her a relative to remarry her someone to support her as a young widow. This was a time when she was heading the women’s task force, which aimed to come up with recommendations for laws and regulations that needed to be reviewed so as to ensure women enjoyed their rights in Kenya. The task force was going around the country collecting views from women on legal issues. The then also intervened and said he didn’t want to hear of that custom of remarrying widows as it would be an international embarrassment. She refused to be immediately inherited and gave a condition the ceremony be after morning her husband for one year. After one year the in-laws came to culminate the inheritance ritual. She agreed but gave them a condition she knew it was impossible to meet; “you bring me a male bachelor who is 64 years old”. She knew this was an unachievable condition. The in-laws never returned. She continued as Judge of Appeal and chair of the Women’s Task Force. The membership of the Taskforce was predominantly comprised of women drawn from all walks of life, and academicians. Civil Society Organizations, Government Bureau, Economists, and Researchers among others. The team went around the country collecting views from the women. The task force made major recommendations including the marriage bill, succession act, matrimonial property, property ownership for married women and maintenance of the wife and children upon divorce or separation, among others. Realising the challenges facing women within the marriage institution, Effie and other women, pushed the setup of the Family Division to handle family matters including succession and divorce among others. Through a broad consultative process, they also came up with the children’s law to protect the rights of children. Some of these issues were later incorporated into the constitution. Lady Justice Effie Owour is concerned that Kenya has many laws on paper, including the two-thirds gender rule, and the timelines for implementation are not respected by the government. While there are many qualified women in the legal profession, they still lag behind in politics and governance. When it comes to politics, Justice Owour, notes that women should stop being too nice but push as their male counterparts do. She notes that women should get involved in community affairs so that they bring in their issues. She also notes that women’s contributions should be quantified. When it comes to sharing matrimonial property, 50:50 is unfair because women will be left with the children with whom they have to share. Therefore, to ensure fairness, this needs to be reviewed. In addition, issues to do with cultural traditions, including the role of elders in executing justice, should be reviewed to ensure they do not perpetuate discrimination against women. However, for Kenyan women to realize their gains, they must make a deliberate effort and come out of their comfort zone, refuse to become partisan with the ruling regime and political parties and work together, as they did in the past. Short Video Documentary Sun, 01 Jan 2017 00:00:00 GMT http://erepository.uonbi.ac.ke/handle/11295/162005 2017-01-01T00:00:00Z http://erepository.uonbi.ac.ke/handle/11295/162001 Women’s Participation in Constitution-Making Process in Kenya (S.3, Part 14) AWSC, Women's Economic Empowerment Hub; Muigai, Salome This 47minutes 56seconds – long video was recorded in June 2017. Salome started observing discrimination against girls and women from an early age. As a girl with a disability, she was never conscious of social gender norms. Her first encounter with gender-based discrimination came after she completed her studies and went to work at Kabete Approved Secondary School. Nobody believed women and more so a disabled girl could run the highest institution. She even became the manager of the institution which to many was not normal. With her experience in dealing with the children and their mothers who mostly came to see their children, she realized the problem was much broader than the children themselves. She returned to school and pursued her master's in gender and development and policy. She was also involved in the preparation of the Nairobi Conference in the education committee. During this period, she realized the problem was much broader. She also realized the power of women and the need for women’s empowerment to ensure a win-win situation for all. As a gender specialist, she was actively involved in the struggle for women’s empowerment. Aware that issues left out in the policy will not be implemented she and other women, including Prof Wanjiku Kabira, and Hon Phoebe Asiyo among others, seized the opportunity for the constitution-making process to ensure women’s issues found their way into the Constitution of Kenya. During the Constitution-making process, she was instrumental as a technical adviser for women and for persons with disability. She was also involved in the founding of the Women’s Political Caucus – Kenya. She was with the women in the Ufungamano Constitution-making Initiative and she was among the five women who were nominated Commissioners to the Constitutional Review Commission. Salome was also involved in gender mainstreaming in the political parties. Salome notes though some progress has been made in gender mainstreaming the young women though educated, passionate and interested are not equipped with relevant skills to continue with the struggle. The young women and all those in leadership should be trained in gender analysis skills, competence and how to come up with a way forward, knowledge and attitude and how to change the prevailing environment. Women should also have a strong movement comprised of the different generations older women, middle and young women, so as to build on the experiences of previous generations so as to build on lessons learnt so that they don’t go back to reinventing the wheel. Women should also hold people and institutions accountable for what they commit to doing for women. Short Video Documentary Sun, 01 Jan 2017 00:00:00 GMT http://erepository.uonbi.ac.ke/handle/11295/162001 2017-01-01T00:00:00Z http://erepository.uonbi.ac.ke/handle/11295/161999 Women’s Participation in Constitution-Making Process in Kenya (S.3, Part 13) AWSC, Women's Economic Empowerment Hub; Mwamburi, Agnes This 1hour 23minutes 44seconds–long video was recorded in June 2017. Mwamburi was born in Voi, Taita Taveta Division and married in Busia and settled in Nakuru. After completing her secondary and A-levels she joined Kenya Polytechnic where she pursued a diploma in Business Administration. Mwamburi married when she was in her second year in Kenya Polytechnic pursuing a diploma in Upon getting her first son she moved to live with her husband in Nakuru. Later, she returned to college and completed her diploma. She worked as a housewife but later she felt that she needed to utilize her skills and started working as a saleslady and later shifted into tailoring and embroidery. From her first sales, she bought a coffee table which she values to date. She later joined ALICO as an insurance saleslady. Her husband did not like the job and when they bumped into an advertisement for a Diocesan Project Officer, her husband asked her to respond to it. She applied and became the first Nakuru Diocesan Project Officer. She worked on contract from 1995 to 2003 when she had a serious accident. She could not work effectively and upon the expiry of her contract, she lost the job. After her recovery in 2004, she started doing community work in Barut, Nakuru. After losing her job, she joined with others who had lost their jobs through the Structural Adjustment Programme. They formed a group “Familia”. At Barut she encountered very young girls with babies who had married very young very intelligent without ever going to school. This reminded her of her childhood and her love for schooling. This motivated her to start working with women and girls. Her encounter with very young girls with babies triggered her interest to reach out and start working with girls. She started working with them with the ACK Church. She also sought support from the CDF for their school fees. Alcoholism was also a problem as parents were involved in sand harvesting and children were left to take care of the siblings. She started working with the Chiefs to address this social problem. She realized there were many other social problems including GBV and land issues. This was exacerbated during the post-election violence in 2007. Mwamburi was a pathfinder in conflict resolution during the 2007 post-election violence. She tried to assist as well as give information to people who she thought were the right people to address the conflict. She notes that as a women leader she suffered a lot in her struggle to help the community resolve the ethnic conflicts, particularly during the 2007 post-election violence. Her peace-building initiatives backfired on her and were beaten up by her husband, who did not approve of her peace-building activities. Following the beatings, she was taken by her brother to Nairobi where she was also treated at the Nairobi Hospital. When she returned home she slowed down her engagement with the community because her husband refused her to go out though in her heart she had a lot of pain. The PEV left entire communities traumatized. After the PEV she was able to resume working with the community in an effort to restore peace. In 2010 she was involved in training in forgiveness and reconciliation by Family Health International. She trained women and girls’, TOTs, on community reach out in an effort to promote peaceful co-existing among the different ethnic groups. Mwamburi’s experience of the impact of violence on the lives of women and communities at large has seen her trend for peacebuilding in the Nakuru area. Her work in conflict and peacebuilding won her the position of PeaceNet Coordinator in the Rift Valley and she has become actively involved in peacebuilding in the region. She’s passionately committed to peace buildings and remains a pillar in the promotion of post-conflict reconciliation and peacebuilding in collaboration with other peacebuilding actors including the CJPC, County Peace Committees, among others in the Rift Valley. She notes that peacebuilding is a challenging and risky exercise both physically and psychologically. According to Mwamburi, elections are a major source of conflict and there should be some interventions to help those whose dreams have been shattered through elections, deal with their emotions, in an effort to build sustainable peace. She is also actively involved in promoting girls’ education and women’s empowerment. She feels there are too many injustices, particularly for women and boys and girls who are still traumatized by the experiences during the PEV, but duty bearers are not doing enough. Short Video Documentary Sun, 01 Jan 2017 00:00:00 GMT http://erepository.uonbi.ac.ke/handle/11295/161999 2017-01-01T00:00:00Z