Walking for Change

Women's March on Nairobi, 21 January 2017

On January 21, 2017, Nairobi joined with groups, towns, and cities all over the world to host a Women’s March. The development was very organic, launched by a few devoted Kenyan and expat organizers, with plans spread largely through social media and word of mouth. The crowd included over 700 people, more than twice the expected size, and included men, women, and children of many nationalities. As with the marches all over the world, there were lots of causes and clever slogans. The atmosphere was warm, and the weather beautiful. The event lasted all day, with food, music, and presentations following the march itself.

The venue for the Women’s March on Nairobi was particularly appropriate. It took place in Nairobi’s Karura Forest, a space that is both beautiful and highly symbolic when it comes to women’s rights and protests. The forest lies entirely within the city limits of Nairobi. Bordered on one side by the massive United Nations (UN) campus as well as the tony neighborhoods of Gigiri, Muthaiga, and Runda, Karura covers some of the city’s most coveted real estate. As a result, the forest, which was gazetted as a reserve in 1932, has been repeatedly threatened by greedy developers – all too eager to cash in on its prized location.

In the late 1990s, there were several movements to protect Karura from encroachment by private developers, who started clearing parts of the woods on the forest’s northern side. Violent protests erupted in 1998, following shady land allocation arrangements between developers and the government. The development was halted, but in 1999 further violence broke out when a group of women led by Wangari Maathai staged a demonstration by planting trees near the forest’s northwest edge. Hired thugs attacked the women, sending several of them to the hospital, including Maathai. The head of the UN Environmental Programme (UNEP) threatened to move the organization’s headquarters out of Nairobi if the forest was destroyed, and UN Secretary General Kofi Annan also added his condemnation of the attacks.

A 2005 Kenya Forests Act put into place stronger protections that have helped preserve Karura. But as recently as 2016, new movements have been afoot by developers to turn the same portion of Karura defended by Maathai and her supporters into a luxury hotel. So far, they seem to have been quelled.

Wangari Maathai is revered as a great national heroine in Kenya. She died of cancer in 2011, but remains a huge role model and source of inspiration for Kenyan women. Maathai was the first East African woman to obtain a PhD, earning a doctorate in veterinary sciences from the University of Nairobi. She was the country’s first female associate professor and department chair, and chaired the National Council of Women in Kenya. Maathai’s tree-planting organization, called the Green Belt Movement, focused primarily on poor, rural women, offering them a source of skills and income in exchange for planting trees and restoring depleted natural resources.

Maathai was a strong advocate for community empowerment and openly defied government-backed corruption and abuse, for which she was jailed, beaten, publicly derided, and fired from her university position. In 2004, Wangari Maathai was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

Wangari Maathai's image is iconic in Kenya.

The young Kenyans I’ve asked speak enthusiastically about Maathai’s work and lessons, but older ones worry that her legacy may not outlast the pressures of urbanization and development.  Already, high-end housing is going up in green zones of Nairobi that Maathai tried to protect, and the struggle to save Nairobi National Park from encroachment is literally losing ground.

Maathai’s fight for women’s rights remains a challenge, too, as Kenya continues to be a country very much governed by traditional gender norms in culture and politics. Female genital mutilation (FGM), though technically illegal, remains widespread. Abortion is illegal unless there is a need for emergency treatment, or the life or health of the mother is in danger. As a result, women resort to unsafe abortions, which are the leading cause of maternal mortality in Kenya.

Under Kenya’s new constitution women are technically allowed to inherit property, but in practice they are still passed over in favor of male heirs. A 2014 Marriage Law legalized polygamy – for men. The bill initially stipulated that the first wife could override the husband’s choice of additional wives, but male Members of Parliament deleted that clause. Female MPs stormed out of the late-night voting session in protest. But female supporters of the law saw it as a way to formalize common practice, and more importantly, to offer protection to successive wives, who had not previously been recognized as officially married.

The Women’s March on Nairobi was primarily focused on fighting sexism and inequality, while calling for more inclusive and progressive governance. Slogans addressed issues such as ending FGM and the trafficking of women and children, the need for reproductive rights, addressing police and political corruption, women’s land and inheritance rights, and the implementation of the gender-based two-thirds rule in Kenya’s parliament. Signs called for protecting the rights of people with HIV, the LGBTQ community, people with disabilities, sex workers, refugees, and other marginalized groups. There were signs against Trump, and signs supporting healthy futures for our planet and people.

The Women’s March on Nairobi has succeeded so far in launching a flurry of follow-up activities, primarily targeting executive orders and appointments in the US. Whether it helps to further the causes of women’s rights in Kenya remains to be seen. But clearly, the fight to protect public rights and the environment will need to continue here in Kenya, as in the rest of the world.

Meanwhile, a study published the journal Environmental Science and Technology back in 2013 confirmed that living in urban areas with green spaces provides long-term positive impacts on people’s mental wellbeing.  Thus, the protection of places like Karura Forest is crucial not only for maintaining the quality of our air, water, and land but also for preserving our sanity. In these political times, that is going to be more critical than ever.