As narrated in the tear provoking BBC documentary, White Terror, countless women were molested and raped; scores were maimed as they watched their children die from hunger and disease. Millions of Kenyans were traumatised by a ruthless colonial and racist regime, which tortured their sons and husbands and harmed their daughters.

No wonder when the clamour for a constitution became louder no woman was in the delegations chosen to go to Lancaster apart from Grace Onyango who joined the drafters later.

Veteran politician Martin Shikuku said that those writing the Constitution did not make specific reference to gender issues "because of the immediate need to gain independence. That was the most urgent matter at that time."

But even the little gains women would have made by representing their regions as specially elected members were thwarted when the regional assemblies system failed to take off. According to Shikuku, the Lancaster document was never given a chance to be used. "In 1964 the constitution was already being abused."

This might explain why when the 1963 general election that ushered Kenya into independence from colonial rule was conducted, no woman was elected into parliament. According to many leaders at that time, Kenya had three enemies, which they had to fight - Poverty, illiteracy and health.

Come Independence, the situation did not improve. In fact as some scholars would say, black dictators replaced white oppressors. The situation has been so bad such that the few women who ventured into the public sphere were deemed to be rebels attempting to break the traditional and cultural tranquillity. They meet hostilities and rejection.

A similar scenario unfolded in the 1966 election dubbed the "Kenya little general elections" which was conducted in only 28 constituencies out of the 158 following the fall out of some sitting members of parliament from the then ruling party, Kenya African Union (KANU) to the opposition, Kenya Peoples Union (KPU).

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