KENYA - Aspiring Decision-Makers Do Battle With Tradition
Joyce Mulama

NAIROBI, Mar 8 (IPS) - Monica Amolo's tale is one of endurance and determination: she is intent on being elected to Kenya's parliament, regardless of the intimidation experienced en route.

Since trying to contest a legislative seat in western Kenya four years ago, Amolo told IPS, she has met with various forms of harassment. These range from being told that a woman's place is in the kitchen and accusations that she is a prostitute -- to physical violence, and even death threats.

Authorities, she added, are not doing enough to ensure that women can compete equally with men in being appointed to local or national government positions.

"Political processes do not care about including women in decision-making posts at any level, be it national or grass roots. The government, which is a signatory to initiatives seeking to improve the status of women, has no goodwill to do so," Amolo said.

Accounts such as this have particular significance Wednesday, when events are being held globally around the theme of "Women in decision-making", to mark International Women's Day.

Faith Musoga, project officer at Gender Sensitive Initiatives, an organisation that promotes equality between men and women, says culture plays a central role in preventing women from taking up positions of authority.

"Cultural stereotypes such as 'a woman belongs in the kitchen' are still being regarded highly," she says. "Even though the situation appears to be changing, we still have a long way to go. Getting communities to accept that some cultures are retrogressive is very difficult."

In certain instances, traditional customs and beliefs not only present challenges to gender equality -- they also threaten women's lives.

Take wife inheritance.

This practice requires a newly-widowed woman to be cleansed of her husband's spirit through sexual intercourse with one of his male relatives -- who then provides her with support -- despite the risk of HIV transmission.

The custom developed as a way of ensuring that widows and their children were cared for after the death of a husband, and of keeping family wealth within a particular clan. It is widely observed in western Kenya.

According to the Programme for Rehabilitation of Women and Children in Socio-Economic Difficulty, providing women with financial independence helps tackle wife inheritance -- as this frees women of the need to seek assistance from the relatives of deceased husbands.

With this in mind, the organisation has set up various income-generating activities in the Ndhiwa region of western Kenya, where it focuses on improving the economic situation of rural women.

By addressing the barriers that women face in being appointed to decision-making posts, Kenya would also be taking steps to meet the third Millennium Development Goal (MDG): to promote gender quality and empower women.

A total of eight MDGs were agreed on by global leaders during the Millennium Summit held in New York six years ago. The goals also aim to end extreme hunger and poverty, achieve universal primary education, reduce child mortality and improve maternal health.

In addition, they focus on combating diseases that are taking a particular toll on poor nations, ensuring environmental sustainability, and developing international partnerships to address key obstacles to development, such as unfair global trade rules. The deadline for the MDGs is 2015.

Women's rights activists in Kenya say affirmative action initiatives could go some way towards ending gender inequality, and giving women a say in the affairs of the country -- especially in the political sphere.

But, little progress has been made on this front in recent years: an affirmative action bill tabled in parliament in 2000 is still pending.

Ahead of last year's U.N. summit to assess whether countries were making sufficient progress towards the MDGs, Anyang Nyong'o, then minister of planning and national development, admitted his government faced considerable challenges in attaining goal three.

In the face of this depressing news, Amolo remains undaunted.

Although she was not able to get her name on a ballot sheet during the 2002 legislative election, she plans to contest the next poll in 2007. Those who insisted that Amolo remain in the kitchen may finally be forced to deal with her in a different setting: parliament.