Women’s Participation in Constitution-Making Process in Kenya (S.3, Part 1)

Abstract

This 2hours 17minutes 31seconds-long video was recorded in June 2017. Hon. Phoebe Asiyo, a daughter of a Seventh Day Adventist missionary, had the opportunity to go to school and later trained as a teacher before joining the City Council as a social worker during the emergency war. Her role included searching for and enlisting orphaned children whose parents had been killed during the war. She witnessed the many injustices meted out on the locals by the British Government and this is what motivated her to fight for justice, particularly for women. In 1954, she joined MYWO but later noted that the leadership of the white people did not address the rights of African women. After a struggle, they got into the leadership of Maendeleo ya Wanawake Organization (MYWO) and it is through this platform that they were able to bring on board African women’s agenda such as economic empowerment, and agriculture, among others. When Jomo Kenyatta was in detention in Lodwar, Hon. Asiyo and other women delegates visited him to advance the women’s agenda. They requested him to incorporate women into his forthcoming government. Thereafter, Hon. Asiyo continued to fight for women’s rights including saving the life of a woman who had been sentenced to death following a confession that she had killed her husband. On the eve of her execution, Hon. Asiyo, who was the Prisoner Commissioner in charge of Lang’ata Women’s Prison at the time, found out that the woman had volunteered to die in order to save her only son who had killed the father. She quickly sought the attention of the President and saved the lady from the hangman’s noose. Later on, she was elected as the first woman MP, for Karachuonyo Constituency. In Parliament, she continued to fight for women’s rights including tabling the first affirmative action (AA) motion in 1997. Unfortunately, it was defeated in the male-dominated parliament. She was later nominated by the KANU government to the Constitution of Kenya Review Commission (CKRC). Together with other women commissioners and the women’s movement, they safeguarded the women’s agenda in the constitution including the inclusion of the Affirmative Action principle. Hon. Asiyo notes that it is the unity of both women and men that enabled women to realize their goals, including the 50:50 society. She underscores the significance of documenting women’s experiences so that future generations will learn from their experiences and know where they are going.