Affirmative Action

Today I listened to two high school boys lamenting through a poem that the boy child has been forgotten. It got me thinking, though great efforts have been put into aiding
the girl child and gender equity the results are very dismal. The girl child is still suffering and women are yet to achieve gender equity. The journey to affirmative action is at a standstill.

For decades, women all over the world have been fighting for affirmative action without success. According to a United Nation report, 2000; Women will have to wait at least four hundred and fifty years before they are represented in equal numbers with men in higher echelons of power. At the current rate of progress, they will reach equality with men in decision-making positions only around the year 2465...

In Kenya the road to affirmative action started years ago with some of the significant events being the Inter-party parliamentary grouped formed in 1997 to look into minimum reforms needed before elections. The women managed to negotiate for 50:50 representations of nominated members of parliament for both men and women. The honorable Beth Mugo also tabled an Affirmative Action motion in April 2000 which was passed. In 2007, honorable Martha Karua sought an Amendment to the constitution to inter alia guarantee fifty seats in parliament for women and the motion was lost and it was a great disappointment to the women.

The promulgation of the new constitution in 27^th August 2010 was a dream come true to the women of Kenya desire for affirmative action. In the new constitution Article 27, it stipulates that the government should pass laws to ensure that at least a third of members of elective or appointed bodies are women. In Article 81 it stipulates that not more than two-thirds of members of elective public bodies shall be of the same gender. Article 97 provides for election of 47 women into the National Assembly each from the forty seven counties. Article 98 stipulates that sixteen women will be nominated to the senate. Finally Article 175 stipulates that women will make at least a third of members of representative bodies in each County Government.

This is the form of representation that women in Kenya have been asking for since independence. Though the constitution supports women representation, actual representation is yet to be realized. The fight for affirmative action has not ended it has just begun and now more than ever women should more zealous.

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