Reflect on gender equality  gains and safeguards » Capital News

The marking of the 2021 Pan African Women’s Day on July 31^st comes at a time in Kenya when the protection of gains made by women in various spheres of life especially in the political arena will shortly be tested. The day looks at the gains made in efforts towards gender equality and women’s empowerment on the continent. Tremendous progress has been made and recorded in the gender equality and women empowerment realm in the country and could be enhanced and protected if in addition to the laws and policies gain the much-needed political goodwill to be implemented. Kenya is in the process of starting preparations for the 2022 general election, and much of the witnessed frustrations on this front have been in the political arena, both the lack of goodwill and failure to implement laws that have been enacted on the same.

Outside the political statements by our leaders and the great work done by women in fighting it out for positions, the institutional and legal framework for promoting and protecting these gains remains problematic in Kenya. Among the reasons advanced that continue to erode the gains made in gender equality and women empowerment are its weak implementation of progressive laws for example the two-thirds gender rule, non-compliance with laws and policies that clearly provide for respect to women issues such as the Elections and Political Parties Acts, the country’s history of violence whenever elections are around the corner (see what is already happening in Marsabit County), political party organization and culture, women political leaders’ limited access to financial resources, limited experience on navigation of political space among others. Other factors include rough terrain for women in mobilization for leadership offices and negative public perception on women’s’ political leadership especially perpetrated by the media.

Judie Kaberia, of the Voice for Girls and Women’s Rights Project in Kenya says that as we mark the day, it will be important that political parties and presidential candidates in the 2022 general election are made to sign special pacts or agreements as commitment to ensure that gender equality and women empowerment are critical issues that will be respected and implemented.

“Laws only without the requisite political goodwill and commitment to actualize many of the affirmative action interventions and legal requirements that protect the rights of women are inadequate to see where women rightly belong. Let us mainstream the issue of gender equality in our political and executive thinking that will clear the path for such days like the Pan African Women’s Day to be celebrated” adds Kaberia.

As a country, we must ensure that deliberate measures are put in place and implemented if we are serious about gender equality and women empowerment; that processes towards election and appointment to the national leadership organs, the inclusion of women in decision making roles who will continue working as champions, remove stereotypes that women are their worst enemies and are capable of leadership and respect to the notion that every person is equal before the law and has the right to equal protection and equal benefit of the law.

Media must be in the forefront to change the narrative on gender equality and women empowerment and set the agenda by their coverage on the role of women as daughters, wives, mothers, grandmothers, put pressure on political parties to respect the Elections Act as that requires political parties to submit their Party Lists required at least forty-five days to the general election including women nominees while the Political Parties Act calls for the treatment of women special interest group.

The author is the Deputy CEO at the Media Council of Kenya.