When the Kenyan populace decided to adopt a new Constitution in 2010, it came with the requirement to elect forty-seven women into Parliament each representing a county and with the same responsibilities as any other member of parliament. This addition to the members of our legislature was one of the most highly contested elements of our constitutional process leading up to the bananas and oranges referendum. The resulting role of Women’s Representative remains shrouded in debate over its purpose and general usefulness.
Contrary to popular belief, your Women’s Rep delivering bales of sanitary towels to girl’s schools or organizing sexual health trainings is not doing their job.
I cringe every time I hear the media and even other members of parliament refer to elected women’s representatives as “flower girls” to the other legislators. The implication of such a belittling and normalized statement is layered: reflecting the reservation of many in creating ‘token’ positions through affirmative action as well as the unspoken assumption that there is no inherent need to have more women in law-making. The rationale behind the creation of the Women’s Representative role is the increase in participation in parliament, especially by women who are considered a ‘special interest group’ in the Kenyan Constitution at Article 100.
This classification – read together with the requirement under Article 81 that no more than two-thirds of the members of elective public bodies shall be of the same gender – in an electorate with a historically male-heavy electorate led us to the creation of the Women’s Representative seat. When author and filmmaker Shelby Steele said “in theory affirmative action has all the moral symmetry that fairness requires. It is reformative and corrective, repentant and redemptive…” he must have had eyes on Kenya. This well-meaning push for inclusivity and reflective representation checks all the boxes on paper, yet may be lacking the groundwork to prevent an inclusivity elective post from adding as much value to the purpose of a wedding as a flower girl.
The obligations of a legislator elected as a Women’s Representative is niche to the extent that the laws and policies they promote and sponsor should be targeted at the unique needs of women and girls in their counties and in Kenya generally. They are responsible for the bigger picture gains of Kenyan women, through the nomination of legislation that mitigate or redress any forms of discrimination against women; making policy steps to bridge social, political and economic gender inequality gaps; influencing government to include women focused and led projects in the budget and other long-term policy interventions.
Contrary to popular belief, your Women’s Rep delivering bales of sanitary towels to girl’s schools or organizing sexual health trainings is not doing their job. Similarly, your Women’s Rep should not be distributing wads of cash in hand-outs as they ideally should not be managing any public funds – a purely executive function. With a clearer job description in mind, why is it still so difficult to appraise our Women’s Representatives and assess their usefulness to the electorate generally and women specifically?
The first reason is rooted in notorious biblical wisdom that people perish for lack of knowledge. Hansard is likely a concept many Kenyans may have never come across yet this record of parliamentary proceedings gives a traceable account of how many times and to what extent all our legislators, including our Women’s Representatives, participate in parliamentary proceedings. Despite constitutional requirements for the citizenry’s access to information, institutional inefficiency reflects even in parliament’s website so that the most likely source of Hansard is www.mzalendo.co.ke, a private website. Alternatively, www.kewopa.org can give insight on the contributions made by women legislators. Unfortunately, even their records are rarely fully up to date. While it may be in our best interests to access physical records of Hansard, ain’t nobody got time for that.
With these realities in mind, how can we assess the efficacy of the affirmative action move of creating the Women’s Representative role? Some commendable efforts by the women legislators include the sponsorship, seconding and debating for bills like the Matrimonial Property and Protection Against Domestic Violence that are now Acts of Parliament. There have also been notable contributions in respect of furthering the two-thirds gender agenda through Constitutional Amendment Bill Number 4 of 2015 sponsored in the National Assembly by Honorable Cecily Mbarire, a special interest nominated Member of Parliament.
The purpose of affirmative action is to establish fair access to opportunities that accurately reflect the qualified demographics of the particular context. By that core definition, merely creating more positions for women who make up a majority fifty-two percent of the Kenyan population is a definite step forward. I often hear this premise challenged on the basis of meritocracy, but if that is the discounter for more women’s elective positions, I challenge its proponents to front what groundbreaking inputs all other elected member’s of parliament have made that so significantly distinguishes them from the “token flower-girls”. Are they also like cute token page-boys in the wedding line up? A best man, after all, could keep the rings in his pocket, right?
The idea is not to compete in a legislator’s “Who’s More Mediocre Now?” but to create awareness on what we are entitled to expect from our legislators as a whole and especially those appointed with specific purposes like the Women’s Representatives, especially as we approach an election year. What are you thinking about as you plan to vote in a whole new parliament? What are you rooting those decisions in?
– Natasha Teyie