UN Women: Report Reveals Fresh Challenges For Female Politicians in Kenya

UN Women on Tuesday, May 23 published a report titled A Political Economy Analysis (PEA) of Women’s political participation in Kenya.  

The report highlighted some of the new challenges that are facing female politicians in the country. 

According to the report, sociocultural practices and the patriarchal nature of society are no longer the only main obstacle constraining the participation of women in politics and leadership.

"It is true patriarchy has played a protracted role as a challenge, but dynamics in the context of electoral politics have brought new and complex challenges into place.

"The cost of politics is on the increase and is higher for women. Women incur more costs than men to break the patriarchal barriers and effectively mobilize their support bases. They have to engage their networks outside of those by men," part of the report reads. 

It also emerged that political parties can both constrain and enhance the role of women since parties determine the nature of women’s participation in politics.

"The parties, owned by male political elites, also determine how successful women can be in politics. In negotiations within political parties, women candidates are pressed to focus on the County Women Representative position. They are disallowed to compete for other posts viewed as a preserve for men. In the 2022 elections, many candidates were pressed to drop from other races. Some political parties required that they drop from these races because they would be nominated after the elections," the report adds. 

UN Women Deputy Country Representative to Kenya Dan Bazira underlined the importance of using this data to inform interventions of state and non-state actors to achieve gender parity in Kenyan politics:

“Inclusion, participation and representation are critical tenets of democratic governance. A society cannot claim to be truly democratic if it leaves out half of its population in key-decision making processes. Although there has been commendable progress on gender equality in Kenya, the political system continues to disenfranchise and disadvantage women who face multiple barriers in participating in politics," Bazira said.