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GENDER ISSUES THAT AROSE WITH POST ELECTION VIOLENCE.
By Nyamori Victor.1
INTRODUCTION
The post election that violence broke out on 30th December 2007, it broke out when the
presidential election results were announced by the Electoral Commission of Kenya
chairman, Mr. Samuel Kivuitu .According the ECK Mr. Kibaki was announced the
winner of the elections . The supporters of the Orange Democratic Movement party who
believed their candidate Mr. Raila Odinga would win by a big margin were disappointed
so they took to the Streets to protests the results , with the country going into rampage,
several people were forced out of their homes , lives were lost and property destroyed.
Among those affected were areas such as Kibera , Mathare slums in Nairobi province ,
Rift Valley province , Coast Province , Western Province and Nyanza Province
Kenya went to the polls on 27th December 2007 to vote in a general election that was
described as the most closely contested. The general election which was supposedly in
the spirit of exercising of democratic rights so as to choose whoever they so wish as their
president and subsequently those who were to represent them in the national assembly or
rather the legislature.
The elections were being overseen by the electoral commissions of Kenya and one of the
major things that were expected was a free and fair election without interference or
irregularities since from time immemorial the elections in the country had been
characterised by pre-election violence that involved among other things tribal clashes.
This is because after the 1991 repeal of sec 2A2 of the constitution of Kenya and
subsequently Kenya being considered as a multi-party state, the country through its
leaders at that time started the fight to have their own ethnic recognition and further
considering it as having a share of the national cake. The communities living in the
country stratified themselves and nucleated around one from their own communities.
They were only stamping a practice that came up with the colonial system of divide and
rule in the country at the peak of their rule. Since the country was also regionally
stratified according to the many ethnic groups that formed it at the time, these ethnic
communities therefore automatically declared the regions they were living at the time as
their own home ground and or areas of residence and hence they owned these places
communally and as their ancestral lands.
Since Kenya became an independent country, it sought to have freedom to its citizens and
also freedom to settle where one would so wish to.
History has it that during the reign of Kenyatta’s government, several members of the
kikuyu community moved to be resettled in the rift valley since they land that was
initially ancestrally theirs did not in anyway enough for them to settle in those places and
use or utilise the land productively.
The lands were then occupied by members of different communities and thereby
intermingling of ethnic communities in different places.
Further, there was upward mobility of the people of Kenya and different ethnic groups
were not originally considered as their own ancestral land at the time of the colonialists.
This therefore created a scenario where ethnic groups lived in different and any places
they so wished, The disturbing aspect was that these people who went and settled in other
areas were and still are paying absolute allegiance to their so called ethnic kings or
tribesmen, this therefore caused ripples amongst the people whose lives they were
directly involved with since they had different allegiance instead of having allegiance to
the unifying factors of the nation as the presidency and not the president; democracy that
the country establishes its authority and existence and other symbols of national unity.
The election results which were immediately announced and which people as they were
at the time optimistic about their candidates who throughout the electioneering and
campaign period were agitating for the results to be released because of claims of rigging
and inflation of figures by the very body – the electoral commission which was supposed
to be overseeing and conducting the election in an impartial manner.

This led to the different groups being impatient about the whole process and loosing trust
of the very process they believed in right from the beginning. When the election results
were announced. There was mixed reactions from the winners and the losers. In areas
where the losers were many, they instead out of frustration and scanty evidence of
rigging against the very neighbours from different communities and ethnic groups that
purportedly came from the same ethnic group as the candidate who rigged the election
and won-Mr Mwai Kibaki3.

GENDER ISSUES ARISING
In the wake of the violence then inhuman activities and dehumanising acts that included
burning of homes and churches and looting of property reigned amongst these people and
3 The President and commander-in chief of the armed forces. He was seeking to be elected for the second time during the December elections. He was nonetheless sworn in as the president of the republic of Kenya on 29th December 2007 amid claims of a fraudulent election.
they saw it as a vengeance for democracy that they so wanted upheld to be denied and
trounced.

Children
It is as a result of the post election violence that education of many Kenyan children was
disrupted. This time not only did the girl child miss school but also their male
counterparts. Both the boy and the girl child were traumatised by the post election
violence where they experienced bloodshed in their homes and neighbouring
environments.As a result of this trauma, the children needed a lot of psychological therapy to help healpsychologically.

Prostitution
The displaced people in the society had very little to live on. It is as a result of this that
many of them, especially girls and women, had to sell their bodies in exchange for money
to survive. Most of them depended on prostitution to make ends meet, to feed their
children and get basic needs for themselves.

Separation
Most of the inter-ethnic communities’ marriages were affected in many different ways.
Many couples, who were married to communities that suddenly became rivals during the
post election violence, were separated or even divorced due to pressure from their
families, friends or even neighbours.
There were so many cases of love betrayal. An example of this case was published in the
Saturday Nation on January 18th 2008. This was a story of a man and a woman who were
that suddenly became rivals during the post election violence, were separated on even
devoiced due to pressure from either their families, friends are even neighbours.
There were so many cases on the betrayed. An example of this was published in the
Saturday nation on January 12th 20008. this was a story of a man and woman who were
both from two different communities. At the time when they were getting married, they
were unconcerned of the differences of their tribe. But as a result of the post election
violence, the men (Peter) were pressured by his community to leave his wife or else they
would kill her. Though the two, Peter and Milka, went to live together again as man and
wife, this would be impossible winless they move to another place due to the dangerous
they would be facing if his wife ever came back to the same community.
Other separation cases came about when the people were running for their own safety.
Many families were separated from their loved ones. Other married couples were
separated not due to their differences in tribal matters but due to the congestions in the
camps where men did women has to stay in different sectors to avoid any sexual assaults
or violations.

Separation arose also in instances where the women and their children were lent to stay in
the camps as their husbands went to other places to search for jobs or places to resettle.
Women.
Women and girls were raped during this violence since at the onset of the violence they
did not at one point have the strength to resist the criminal male counterparts that were
here to engage in these dehumanising acts. At this point justice would not be easily
sought and the people were so much frustrated if they at all tried to engage in seeking
justiceWomen were also widely affected since they are weaker and the community

warriors who would have protected them did move back, since in their view women and
children should never be attacked during such fighting. They however suffered from
battering and beating and others were burnt to death in their defencelessness even in the
safe havens of churches and other places. stations and churches since the people were not
being catered for.

A lady at the Jamhuri Grounds where most victims of the post-election violence were
being catered for and who had come from mainly the worst hit slum-Kibera slums4, was
pregnant at the time the house was razed down and they had to leave without even a
single item including the clothes and the necessary documents that she had been using to
attend pre-natal clinic with. These documents are important during childbirth so with the
husband nowhere in sight and everything razed down she could not even be admitted into
a credible hospital since there was contention about so many things including the
documents which the hospital needed. Her reproductive rights were not being upheld to
some extent of denying her right to deliver her baby at a place she so desires.
Women who owned property in towns also suffered the brunt of male youths looting their
property easily since they were being viewed by the male youth as being weak and hence
cannot do anything to them, this was a gender issue that arose during the violence

Tribalism
Both the men and women were affected by tribalism all over the country. Favours could
only be sought from people on the same tribe.
DeathsThis is the largest slum in Africa with poor living standards amongst its residents. Prostitution is rampanthere since most of women in this place don’t have jobs and they need to put something on the table at the end of the day.

Both men and women and children were being killed without discrimination. Many
people lost their lives during the post election violence. As a result of this those who
survived were left with the burden of all the responsibilities that were carried out by their
dead loved ones

Employment
Job opportunities were lost to both the male and female due to the increased level of
tribalism.Those who worked far away from their homes of places of origin lost their jobs or work
places that were either burnt down to the ground or taken away by people belonging to
those communities. Others were actually sacked from their places of work. In some
instances the people opted to quit working due to the increased insecurity levels or eve
asked for transfers.An example of this includes the teachers and lecturers working for far
away from their places of origin who asked for transfers back to their homes or other
places not hit by the post election violence for the sake of their security
Gender issues arose at this time and are still arising and gender violence was and still is
very much alive at the time. Traditionally ethnic communities were protected by the male
counterparts while children and women especially just stayed at home and attended to the
things there. The men who in most ethnic communities were considered as warriors and
would be involved in attack presumed their ethnic roles and took to the streets and forests
considering where one came from, even though even the women were in some areas
were involved in the battle but mostly it were men who engaged in all these.
.The roads were blocked and there was a communication breakdown since these youths
blocked even the movement of food, persons and essentially needed things from reaching

the people at the time of the violence. It was not easy even to seek medical attention since
there were no vehicles for transportation.
.Other male were also sodomised during the time.
When these people had been driven from where they used to reside and they moved to the
camps that were made or managed by the Red Cross and other humanitarian
organisations, there was the dire need to establish such camps away from the police
There are also accounts of sex for food hiatus. Different organisations workers would
deliver food to women in exchange for sex at the IDPs camps5 since they were the ones
delivering the food and distributing it and the people at the camps especially the women
who were most vulnerable and some had to cater for their children in these camps and
since there was no other way to look for these food they would be forced to engage in sex
with those who delivered or distributed food in order to secure for themselves and their
children food on the table. They were mainly affected since as was evident the males who
distributed food would solicit for sex from them in order to give them food which was an
abuse in the greatest manner.
The camps having witnessed the food for sex hiatus did pose a big threat to improving
fight against H.I.V./AIDS6 by the government and other stakeholders since they did pose
a big threat of faster rate of infection and spread of H.I.V./AIDS at the places. The most
affected group would be the women who were on imminent danger being laid their way
since they were the easily targeted prey at the camps.
The internally displaced persons camps were established as a need to counter the growing numbers of the
people who had been driven away from their homes. There are several internally displaced camps around
the country. For instance the distance stretching from Eldoret to Nakuru has IDPs camps at every centre or
town all the way to Total. They include Timboroa, Mau summit, Total and Molo. HIV/aids having been declared a national disaster by the former president Daniel Arap Moi, the
government took it upon its priorities to fight the spread which was viewed to affect the economy in a
number of ways including the depreciation of the skilled and unskilled labour force in the country

In conclusion, post election violence depicted and was evidenced occasioned gender
violence against women, dehumanising acts such as rape and sodomy and also risk and
threat in the wake of the continuous fight for AIDS this indeed put the women folks at a
very dangerous situation during and after the violence and the government should be able
to resettle the IDPs, so as not to continue exposing them in this danger.