Kenya, the network has targeted individuals who belong to diverse groups. Ali says this is what makes the membership of YWLI unique. “If you are working for a women’s organisation that is a member of an umbrella organisation, this does not necessarily guarantee that you as a young woman are going to be involved in the decision-making of that umbrella organisation. That is what we wanted to change.”
YWLI soon extended its activities to young women from East Africa. The membership now includes women from Burundi, Rwanda, Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda, Somalia and even Eritrea. Some of them have been able to come for training courtesy of Saida Ali’s zeal and vision for her organisation. “Though there is a lot of organising going on around the human-rights and social justice movement in Africa,” Ali explains the expansion, “what has been missing whenever there are regional opportunities for advocacy in Africa is a voice representing young women from the East African region.”
Wearing a black top with pink lettering spelling out the message, “This is What a Feminist Looks
Like,” Ali speaks calmly and authoritatively. “You may perhaps be wondering whether women’s rights issues are different from young women’s issues,” she says, leaning forward to explain. “The issues are really the same, but what we wish to be acknowledged is that the context has changed. The groundwork that our mothers did before Beijing — for instance, on education — paved the way for us; my generation and I never struggled with the issue of education like my mother had to. However, when it comes to participation where decisions are being made, people always assume that women as a group are homogeneous, so the whole aspect of diversity is not acknowledged, and young women are swept under the carpet.”
In particular, unemployment is always at the top of the list of the issues affecting young women and the youth generally in Kenya. A recent study found that young women are three times more likely to be unemployed than young men. It is this same unemployment that led to the formation of
the Mungiki terror gang. Jobless youths banded together under the
banner of an ancestral religion that rejected the capitalistic values of modern society, embracing the communal sharing of the Gikuyu tradition. Over time, they began extorting protection money from public transport operators (matatus) and hawkers to finance their operations and start small businesses. They decreed that all females should be circumcised, and took to stripping women in public for wearing trousers or miniskirts, which they deemed a foreign abomination. Those who stood up to them were met with beatings and macabre beheadings. Soon their word was law. Organisations like YWLI, which were campaigning against female circumcision, became their target, and women were warned not to attend their meetings.
Rape or fear of rape also discourages young women from attending meetings or participating in certain public spaces. Young women are exposed to or become victims of sexual harassment even within educational institutions — be it primary schools, secondary schools or institutions of higher learning. “Sexual harassment doesn’t just come from their peers; it also comes from their teachers, lecturers and, very surprisingly, from non-teaching staff.” These factors don’t create a conducive atmosphere for somebody to express themselves or want to live and work to their best potential,” Ali says.
She feels that age shouldn’t be a hindrance. “Our culture is such that youth are supposed to respect their elders - and that is a good aspect of our culture. However, this has been taken too far,” Saida explains. “It does not mean that I cannot
lead in certain areas on the basis of experience. Nowadays, you get experience from reading, from travelling, from the Internet. You are able to acquire skills, and that is why people continue their learning beyond even college. Age has been used to justify invisible discrimination against the younger generation.”
She believes that religion too ought to look deep within itself to see that age is not an obstacle. “Jesus died young. The prophet Mohammed, when he got the call, was young. All these people were young and they led huge religious nations. ”
Giving the example of her own faith, she says that people have confused religion with culture to push a male chauvinist agenda. “As a result, we have a lot of people who think that Islam does not respect the rights of women. That is not true. People have imposed things such as female genital mutilation on women saying it is part of religion — it is not.” Her experiences as a worker in camps for Somali refugees in North Eastern Kenya in the late 1990s showed her the full horror of the practice firsthand. Prevalence rates for infibulation, the most severe form of FGM, were 98%.
Ali says that just looking at the basics of all religions that preach peace, unity and love, should show that religion respects human rights. “I do not know of any religion in the world that champions oppression.”
Ironically, the Mungiki terror gang, faced with a government crackdown, sought refuge in Islam. Its
leaders converted and warned that any criticism directed against them was harassment of Muslims and would be opposed. As Ndura Waruinge, its dreaded leader, was to admit later when he became a born-again Christian, they roped in Islam to work on the fears of the Americans in the War Against Terror and in the hope of winning international solidarity from Muslims when they were targeted. Now out of control, the gang established a parallel government in Nairobi, complete with courts and execution squads. Talk of women’s rights and youth sexuality were top on their list of proscribed acts. As a Muslim herself, Ali knows that issues of sexuality and sexual rights are sensitive not just in her religion but in all world religions. “We are all human beings and human rights are for all human beings. It is important to think of a person as a human being before you begin to think about passing judgment.” She gives the example of abortion and tackles it head on. “I do know for sure that Islam allows abortion. Specific instances where it is allowed are mentioned in the Koran.” She speaks bitterly, as she remembers seeing Muslim women die during childbirth. In particular, there was a woman she knew who died during her eighth delivery, having given birth seven consecutive years, meaning a pregnancy every year.
As a director, Ali is glad that YWLI has created a safe space for young women to be able to articulate sensitive issues. While she is also glad that, due to sensitisation and empowering education, many girls who were in abusive relationships have decided that enough is enough and left their
abusive relationships, she feels the backlash from men has been so severe that they have been blamed for breaking up homes. “These people trace that work to us and they have threatened some of the activists who are working with us,” she says. She gives the example of Dandora, one of the lower middle-class housing estates in the east of Nairobi. Their work there culminated in the Mungiki threat to circumcise the YWLI workers. Ali and her colleagues reported the incident to the police. “You see now how issues of sexuality are used to get back at women or at activists who are doing work to address concerns that are affecting women,” she points out. “Violating our bodily integrity is used to intimidate women. It brings about fear, and it’s not easy for us. We are not going into Dandora until the security issue in this country is sorted out.”
Born in Machakos in 1975, Saida Ali began her schooling at St Mary’s Girls’ Primary School and then went on to Machakos Girls’ High School. She later studied for a Bachelor of Arts in Sociology and English at the Egerton University, and is now doing her postgraduate diploma in NGO management at the Digital Advisory and Learning Centre.
An avid reader of real life stories, Ali is currently reading the autobiography of Winnie Mandela, whose stand against the brutal Apartheid regime in South Africa she finds particularly inspiring. Who knows, her own real life stories may end up being written down one day to inspire future women to believe that their youth need not stop them from achieving.
S
ome students from the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine in the UK came all the way to Kenya in the late 1990s to do a research piece on HIV and voluntary counselling and testing (VCT) in the country. Shocked at the prevalence of the disease and the lack of initiatives to encourage people to be tested, they decided to turn their study into a practical intervention, giving birth to an organisation that would over the years transform itself into a major player in HIV prevention in Kenya.Now a mainstream HIV prevention treatment and care organisation, Liverpool Voluntary Counselling and Testing Centre (LVCT) still has strong links with the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine. When VCT began to be scaled up, Liverpool began
to scale up other HIV prevention services as well as treatment and care. In 2002, it was registered as non-profit, non-governmental Kenyan organisation giving technical assistance to government and others wishing to start quality VCT services in public healthcare settings. “Currently, we see about 250,000 people on counselling and testing a year,” acting director Nduku Kilonzo elaborates, “and about 15,000 patients who are on anti-retroviral therapy (ART). As we have moved along, we have built up our research database and are trying to learn from our programmes what challenges service providers face on a day to day level.”
Kilonzo is jovial, interactive and youthful , reflecting the image of her organisation, but there is no doubt about her seriousness when discussing