Beijing fruits sweet, but gender gap still wide
Veteran politician and Keany’s first woman Cabinet minister, WINFRED NYIVA MWENDWA led a delegation of 450 women to represent the country in the fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing in 1995. Twenty five years since the adoption of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action, she takes stock of the gains made, challenges and what can be done to push the gender equality agenda
Betty Muindi @BettyMuindi
Twenty five years ago, 17,000 delegates and 30,000 activists from 200 countries across the globe assembled in Beijing for the fourth World Women’s Conference.
Kenya was among the countries with the largest delegation of 450 women from all walks of life, led by veteran politician and the first woman Cabinet minister, Winfred Nyiva Mwendwa.
Two weeks of political debate followed, heated at times, as country representatives hammered commitments that were historic in scope.
By the time the conference concluded, it had produced the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action, the most progressive blueprint ever for advancing women’s rights.
But on their return home, Nyiva and her emissaries’ reception was cold. The demeanor in which a section of Kenyans approached the Beijing conference overshadowed the issues that took them there.
Instead of being viewed as issue-based, the conference was treated with theatrics and ridicule.
“It appeared people who had been following the conference from home misinterpreted or just wanted to water down the whole essence of the conference.
When we returned, there was panic among a section of Kenyans, especially the men,” she explains.
“They started spreading rumours that we had been discussing about sharing domestic duties.
That when a wife spreads the bed today, her husband should do it tomorrow, among other domestic chores,” she laughs at the thought.
Nyiva for instance, drew undue attention for allegedly carrying along her hairdresser to the conference.
Also news of women adopting a plan of action that affirms a woman’s sexual rights, including romance between women known as lesbianism, caused a stir that even rattled then President Daniel arap Moi.
“We heard many rumours and received criticism questioning the credibility of the conference,” she laughs. “They said that women were taught to disrespect their husbands.”
She terms all allegations as misconstrued untruths that were only meant to divert attention from real issues.
“For example, I did not bring my hair dresser to Beijing, my delegation consisted of women from all walks of life; from cabinet ministers’ wives, corporate heads to the women traders in Gikomba including beauticians,” says Nyiva impugning quoted statements that she did so to take care of her appearance as a minister.
About the lesbianism debate, Nyiva says she was as shocked as her fellow delegates, who only heard about existence of such a discussion after they returned.
“You see, there were so many meetings going on at the conference, and this particular meeting, as I later learnt had been held by women from Scandinavian countries. It should interest you that some of the women in the delegation had no idea what lesbianism was all about,” she chuckles.
Nyiva holds dearly the game changing effect that the conference had and continues to have on not only Kenyan women, but also the world. She is glad that the sideshows did not deter the Kenyan delegation in advocating for women’s rights in Kenya.
She is proud that the conference gave birth to conversations that women were afraid of having.
She attributes most gains made today to the Beijing declaration and platform for Action.
“Since then, the government and relevant organisations have translated the promises made on that day into concrete changes in individual countries ushering in enormous improvements in women’s lives,” she offers.
Today, more women than at any previous point in time hold leadership positions in various sectors and serve in political offices.
Women are now protected by law against gender-based violence, and live under constitutional guarantees of gender equality. She is glad that regular five-year reviews of progress on fulfilling Beijing commitments have sustained momentum.
A politician for 43 years, she says progress has been made over the years in terms of gender parity, but most challenges remain the same.
Rigid gender stereotypes, retrogressive cultures, wage discrimination, under-representation of women in political positions among other challenges still stand in the way of gender equality and, therefore, much remains to be done.
In regard to the girlchild empowerment, she is worried about how the government is handling teenage pregnancies.
“Instead of just encouraging girls to who have gotten pregnant or given birth to go back to school, they should focus on finding ways of preventing those pregnancies in the first place,” she says.
She says taking those girls back to school is not a solution because it is not good for the baby being left at home by the young mother as well as for the young mother whose thoughts may not be in class.
Nyiva is concerned by Members of Parliament unwillingness to pass the Two-Thirds Gender Bill, which seeks to bridge gender disparity in parliament by providing for extra nomination slots for women. It has flopped four times due to lack of quorum to send it to the third reading stage.
“It means there looms a danger that women’s gains in the 21st century will be turned back by narrowly defined patriarchy, which seek cohesion by returning women to their traditional roles,” she poses.
She attributes failure of the bill to pass to lack of good political will as well as a patriarchal culture and a lack of education by men as the key barriers to women’s empowerment.
“We must target changing attitudes among men and boys in order to create lasting improvements for women and girls. From experience, I can categorically say that an educated man in my opinion— one who is enlightened and not with academic credentials, will not be threatened by a woman,” she points out. .
Having more women in parliament according to Nyiva, will assist Kenya in the fight against corruption since women as proven by research are less corrupt than men.
“Women are less likely to steal, especially mindlessly compared to men, for example, I have not been implicated in corruption related issues during my long political stint,” she boasts.
But like every hurdle that Kenyan women have had go through, Nyiva believes that there is light at the end of the tunnel.
The mother of two, Kavinya and Maluki and four grandchildren has since retired from politics, lives in her palatial home in Muthaiga. She is now running her various businesses.
She is also closely involved in women empowerment programmes and forums, both state and private.
