Eznahs Nyaramba, celebrated saviour of GBV survivors in Kisii as world marks 16 days of activism » Capital News

KISII, Kenya Dec 9 – Women are responsible for a disproportionate amount of care work across the globe because of a lack of investment in public services, a labour market that ignores people’s care needs, and harmful stereotypes that consider such work to be a reserve for women and less skilled or valuable than paid work.

Today, women and girls are responsible for over 75% of all unpaid care and domestic work globally, contributing over three times more labour than men.

Despite growing recognition from international organizations and the private sector that this issue needs to be tackled, interventions often fail to recognize the role of gender norms or are still unsure how to address them.

This uneven responsibility for unpaid care work results in time poverty and significant opportunity costs, particularly among the poorest and most marginalized women and girls.

Heavy and unequal UCDW undermines women and girls’ rights by excluding them from opportunities to engage in decent paid work, education, and political life and leisure activities.

It is one of the main reasons why 42% of women globally are outside the paid workforce, compared to just 6% of men.

According to the Kenya 2019 census, women accounted for 50.2% (9.89 million) of the total working population, compared to 49.8 % (9.79 million) men. The majority of these women work in the informal sector and are also heavily involved in care work at the household and community level.

Eznahs Nyaramba, a celebrated saviour of SGBV victims in Kisii County, says that after completing her high school education, she got into an abusive marriage but stayed on hoping that things will improve.

Here, she was only a housewife with no income and she completely depended on her husband. She was experiencing an abusive marriage with violence from her spouse but did not leave because she had no other source of income.

It was until one day in 2010, when she thought of her life and moved out after experiencing facing torture that she decided to make her life better and the lives of other young women facing similar challenges.

“I started with three women, we could go to public social places meet with young women for a talk as I shared my story and sought consolation. Many started opening up on the violence they were experiencing in their marriages but feared to get out,” she said.

Here so many women opened up and spoke about what they were undergoing.

Eventually, she received invitations to speak on radio interviews about Gender-Based Violence (GBV). That is how she ended up becoming popular and helped rescue many women from the tr

“I have rescued over 2,000 women from abusive marriages and dealt with 87 divorce cases among others,” she said.

Most recently, Nyaramba said she pursued a defilement case involving a class six girl who was defiled and impregnated by her grandfather in Kisii.

She amplified this incident and involved the media to seek justice for the girl, she catered for her maternity expenses and filed a case in court which is currently ongoing.

Chief Executive Officer at Kenya National Commission on Human Rights (KNCHR) Dr.Benard Mogesa says unpaid work can be a source of conflict in families where the man is the breadwinner.

“Whereas the Matrimonial Property Act stipulates a 50/50 sharing of property during divorce, it is evident that quantifying the contribution of unpaid work remains controversial,” he said.

Kisii Police commander Francis Kooli says most of the Gender-based violence victims opt to stay in their marriages to sustain themselves due to economical sustainability because they can’t sustain themselves.

“For the many cases we receive, a number of the victims who are women are housewives, they have no money and fear getting out to speak what they are going through in their marriages,” said Kooli.

Cultural issues have also contributed to gender-based violence cases where women are forced by the family and community to endure abusive marriages.

In cases where women are breadwinners or are financially stable than their husbands and, men feel women should not do anything. Such women get abused and can’t speak fearing the community and family will turn against them.

“The Kenyan culture gives more power to men, many take the advantage and abuse women and this is a biased culture,” said Kooli.

In the past two months, Kisii county recorded 16 defilement cases, one case on gang defilement, two on sodomy cases, two threatening to kill, two cases on assault, one incest case, and one case on an indecent act with a child.

Wilkins Ochoki an advocate of the High Court said during Covid -9, gender-based violence cases increased compared to the past years.

Ochoki said women earning below minimum wage are likely to experience gender-based violence.

“The law protects victims of gender-based violence, we have so many acts that protect and promote justice for GBV victims, we have the sexual offenses act,” said Ochoki.

Josephine Moraa, a mother of two narrates how she dropped out of school and got married when she was in Form Two after she found out that she was pregnant.

At this time, life became more difficult due to infidelity from her Boda Boda husband and whenever she questioned him, he always beat her and threatened to kick her out.

She said she feared reporting the matter to the police since both families told her to be patient as things would change when she will give birth.

“When I got a baby, my husband threw me out and this is the time I went back home and vowed never to get back to that marriage,” she said, “I eventually went back to school, finished my high school studies and I am now pursuing a course in fashion design.”