African Woman and Child Feature Service

As we woke up to the World Humanitarian Day, dark clouds hang over Kenya as the Cabinet decided to renege on the issue of the not more than two thirds principle of the same gender taking elective and public positions.

The road to Constitution making in this country has been long and windy. There have been many bumps and potholes that have threatened to derail the making of new laws in Kenya.

While Cabinet is made up of politicians who serve after five year terms, they are now treating the laws like their personal property. For one they used the women to help them pass the Constitution through the referendum on August 4, 2010.

By deciding that the two third principle cannot work especially with relation to women’s representation, this Cabinet and Government is behaving like a Cassanova that will only use and dump. They have used the women to achieve their agenda and are now dumping them. What a shame.

People are arguing that women should not speak out on this as they will antagonise the government and lose most of the gains that they have entrenched in the Constitution. As I understand the Constitution is the law of the land. Why is this Cabinet changing it now to suit their whims? Within this Cabinet are many people who were against the women’s gains including the Minister for Gender herself. She is the one who had the mandate to convince the Cabinet that the women’s gains must not be eroded in a Cabinet sitting. Yet she did not.

The anti-reformists sitting in the Cabinet have now found their ground after they lost to Kenyans in the referendum. Instead of working to write laws that support what is in the new Constitution, they have now found a platform to fight the women for supporting the Constitution. For how long are men going to use and dump women in this country?

If countries like South Sudan, Rwanda, Tanzania, South Africa and Mozambique have implemented the affirmative action and it has worked, what makes it difficult for Kenya, which is considered more developed and with more educated women than the aforementioned?

The Southern Africa Development Community (SADC) set a bar of 30 percent many years ago; they have now gone past this mark and are now calling for 50-50 men to women. In fact SADC has a barometre that it uses to measure how its member states are implementing affirmative action and the States are taken to task where they falter.

The African Union has also stipulated in its mandate that its member states achieve the 50-50 gender parity. The African Union, to which Kenya is a member, calls for gender equality and empowerment in all its member countries.

The African Union gender policy advocates for promotion of a gender responsive environment and practices as well as enforcement of human rights, gender equality, and women’s empowerment commitments made at international, regional, continental and individual member states.

The East African Community, of which Kenya is a member, also has a gender policy that member states are expected to follow.

These international treaties such as the AU gender policy are recognised by the Constitution of Kenya.

If the Cabinet at a single sitting can decide that a section of the Constitution cannot work, how many more can Kenyans expect them to break? It seems that by the time they go through all the chapters of this new law, they will have decided at their own whim to go against many tenets in the Constitution.

The new Constitution, we were made to believe, would have helped reduce impunity in this country.

The Cabinet, which is supposed to lead by example, is the one that is now breaking the law. What will we say to the villagers who are yet to understand what is contained in the Constitution to enable them carry out constitutionalism?

Actually this Cabinet is just behaving like the colonial Government that believed that women should never be in possession of identity cards or vote. It is indeed a shame that a country like Kenya that is looked upon by its neighbours as a leading light should actually be the tail (kuvuta mkia) when it comes to issues of affirmative action.

The Cabinet must learn that there is always a single step that marks the beginning of a journey. How can they dismiss affirmative action in political space even before they have tried it? They should have allowed the country to try it first and then from the outcome determine whether it worked or failed.

Does this Cabinet think that Rwanda that is now leading the world in enacting the affirmative action principle is stupid? Does this Cabinet know that the world is now looking upon Rwanda as a country that every nation should emulate?

Is Kenya better than Tanzania, Uganda and South Sudan, countries that have implemented affirmative action to the letter and spirit?

The Kenyan Cabinet needs to rethink what they are doing. Kenyan population needs to take them to account on this action otherwise the document we are calling a Constitution will never see the light of day. To be part of political leadership and decision making is the women’s constitutional right, give it to them.