Are Women Truly Becoming Empowered?

One of the most significant discussions today is women’s equality and empowerment and has become a leading issue in the new global economy. Despite copious NGO’s and local charities working for women’s rights and empowerment, the extent to which such institutions are successful is variable. On the surface, many of these organisations appear effective and there is no doubt that every centre is a step in the right direction towards gender equality, yet in the long term and wider context just how sustainable and empowering are they? The lack of equal education rights for women in many countries results in lower incomes and standards of living for them and their children as higher paying and skilled jobs are less obtainable. There is also a correlation between domestic violence towards women in strongly male dominated areas and patriarchal societies.

A major concern for many women in Kenya is the stigmatisation faced from their family and community after contracting HIV. They often lose their jobs, any support from or contact with their kin and are confronted with poverty and ostracism. The Living Positive Kenya Centre, a local donor-funded charitable initiative in the Ngong, Rift Valley area of Kenya, operates a Women’s Economic Empowerment Programme (WEEP) for local women who have HIV/AIDS, victims of domestic violence and in economic distress. The eighteen-month programme is split into three six-month phases, running from nine to five every weekday with the aim of further educating and training the women so that they can live sustainable lives. The first six-month phase is designed stabilise the women, helping them heal emotionally, mentally and physically. This stage of the programme offers shelter, access to anti-retrovirals, home-based treatment, reproductive health services, nutritional guidance and psycho-social support. The second phase is Skill Building where the women are taught to make craft products such as beaded jewellery, bags and cards, also learn how to produce larger items such as mosquito nets, school uniforms, mats and so on. The final phase is Business Plan Development where the women are taught to manage business and finance with the goal of starting their own business so that they can provide for themselves and their children. The women’s children attend a school established by the charity.

The women attending the Living Positive Kenya Centre have mostly been ostracised by their family and friends yet, research, my own from 2013-2014 and from the work of others, show the skills they learn at the WEEP Centre result in an increased respect towards them from the community. This is especially true when comparing them to other women who are also victims of domestic violence and/or HIV and are unable, for whatever reason, to take part in the programme. The women are viewed by their community as determined and striving to better themselves and achieve a higher status in the local society.

In a wider context however, the women still have limited independence and authority and are still constrained by patriarchy and gender inequality. This is largely due to gender stigmatisation and the lack of education and knowledge required for a higher paying job, which would lift them out of poverty. Despite the WEEP’s contribution to the women’s raised profile in Ngong, the work they do is still contained within the narrow parameters of the informal sector. Therefore, though perceptions of the women themselves are more positive, their position, like that of women in general in the local community, remains static – low status and, in varying degrees, subordinate.

Thus, one can argue that despite aid programmes enhancing women’s lives, more needs to be done to change the perception, and the position in general, of women in Ngong and perhaps women who have attended similar aid organisations worldwide. The formal academic education the WEEP Centre gives to their children, both girls and boys, however, may give rise to an improving situation, where the incidence of domestic violence and HIV are reduced, and the empowerment of women and levels of gender equality are increased. Gender equality, domestic violence and HIV are serious subjects and need to be of global importance requiring government intervention on a local, national and ultimately global scale.

You can find out more about the Living Positive Kenya Centre here

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