A teenage girl surfs the internet at a resource centre in Nairobi. But cyber crime and bullying against Kenyan women is on the rise. Credit: David Njagi/IPS

By David Njagi
NAIROBI, Jan 30 2014 (IPS)

For a seasoned politician like Kenya’s Rachael Shebesh, few things hold her back from rallying for women’s rights. But when it comes to furthering her platform on social media – it is the one thing that this Nairobi County women’s representative avoids.

Like all women hooked on technology here, this hardliner politician has not been spared the muck of cyber bullying.

She has endured demeaning attacks suggesting that she is a feminist “not fit for leadership” and also comments full of sexual innuendo on social media sites.Kenya’s office of the Director of Public Prosecutions acknowledges that women who are victims of cyber crime and bullying very rarely report the crime.

“Cyber crime [and bullying] is targeting everybody. I am a politician and I know we get targeted and that is why I keep off social media,” Shebesh tells IPS.

According to the Kenya ICT Action Network (KICTANet), a multi-stakeholder platform for people and institutions interested and involved in ICT policy and regulation, cyber crime and bullying against Kenyan women is on the rise.

The organisation says that this involves incidents of cyber stalking, sexual harassment, persistent abusive mobile messages, sex trafficking and humiliating comments that reinforce gender stereotypes.

There have also been cases of professional sabotage, identity theft and incidents where intimate photos and videos have been used to blackmail women.

“They seem to go hand-in-hand with women and girls’ lack of knowledge of the risks and the extent of the damage that they continue to sustain through cyber crime,” says a KICTANet report released in June 2013 titled, “Women and Cybercrime: the Dark Side of ICTs”.

This East African nation lacks legislation to police cyber crime. Last year, the Business Daily Africa reported that the country’s cyber security remained one of the weakest in the world and that experts were able to “intercept [mobile phone] voice traffic and obtain temporary secret keys for some subscribers, revealing the high level exposure.”

Currently, Kenya’s laws are unable to effectively prosecute cyber crime and online hate speech. This is why the Kenya Internet Governance Forum Steering Committee (KIGFSC) is now pushing for the draft Cyber-Crime and Computer Related Offences Bill 2014 to be signed into law. The draft will only be presented to parliament in March.

KIGFSC chairperson, Alice Munyua, tells IPS that the legislation is expected to protect all Kenyans, but there is a need to specifically protect women from cyber attacks.

“Cyber crime affects women differently,” argues Munyua. “The cyber security bill should have a few clauses that deal specifically with how cyber crime affects women.”

However, not everyone is convinced that Kenya can deliver on this legislation. The Communication Commission of Kenya (CCK), the agency charged with drafting the bill, refuses to share details of the legislation with the public.

And the International Association of Women in Radio and Television (IAWRT) believes that Kenya should first engage in finalising the African Union Convention on Cyber Security, which covers issues of e-transaction, cyber security, personal data protection and combating cyber crime.

According to IAWRT, once African countries become signatories to the convention, they will be bound by international law to have their own legislation in place.

“The convention is expected to serve as a blueprint and guide countries to develop cyber security legislations,” Grace Githaiga, IAWRT vice-chairperson, tells IPS.

Githaiga says that the convention was originally meant to have been signed this month, but the process was postponed until June because of Kenya’s involvement with the International Criminal Court (ICC).

Kenya’s President Uhuru Kenyatta and his deputy William Ruto have been charged by the ICC for crimes against humanity, which occurred during the country’s disputed 2007 elections. Ruto is already on trial while Kenyatta’s case has been postponed.

However, the Kenya Police Service insists that cyber violence against women is classified as a serious crime.

“Officers have been trained on cyber investigation at the Criminal Investigation Department and are well equipped to handle such cases,” Marcela Wanjiru Andaje, the superintendent of police in charge of community policing, gender and child protection, tells IPS.

However, Kenya’s office of the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) acknowledges that  women who are victims of cyber crime and bullying very rarely report the crime. The DPP receives more cases of child pornography than ones of cyber crime and intimidation against women.

But Shebesh believes that government agencies like the CCK and the Kenya Police Service can easily contain this emerging crime.

But, she says, the process of seeking justice is too lengthy for anyone’s comfort.

“Today, if you want to catch someone who has abused you through social media you can. But you have to go through a process that is too taxing for the ordinary Kenyan and so they normally leave it,” says Shebesh.

Working conditions on Kenya’s flower farms do not always meet international labour regulations. Credit: Suleiman Mbatiah/IPS

By David Njagi
NAIVASHA, Kenya, Jun 10 2013 (IPS)

Catherine Mumbi knows the difficulties of working in Kenya’s flower sector. She was fired as a casual worker at a flower farm after taking time off to recover from complications of the liver. But that was just the start of her problems.

“When I felt better I went back but my superior demanded that I have sex with him to keep my job,” says Mumbi, who had taken two months off while being hospitalised for her illness. “I declined.”

“The following morning a watchman knocked on my door with a letter saying my job was over and that I should immediately vacate the company’s compound,” Mumbi tells IPS. “I have been jobless since then…. I am surviving on the generosity of well wishers since December 2011.”

There is a possibility that Mumbi’s job could have also caused her illness in the first place.

IPS visited a few flower farms in Naivasha, in Kenya’s Rift Valley Province, where access is restricted and the grounds are monitored by security guards. Here, for hundreds of workers like Mumbi, a healthy rose means a shortened lifespan.

Inside the greenhouses measuring up to eight by 60 metres, all is quiet except for the occasional supervisor barking orders. The plucking and trimming goes on without a fuss as heaps of newly harvested roses keep piling up.

Even the smell of freshly-sprayed chemicals does not appear to interrupt the order and discipline in the farms that have sprung up in Naiposha, a once patchy terrain 30 kilometres away from the town of Naivasha.

According to Charles Kasuku, a social worker in Naivasha involved in a previous audit on the working conditions in Kenya’s flower sector, there are instances where the labels of chemicals are changed to disguise them from being identified as toxic.

For example, campaigning for the phasing out of methyl bromide, a highly toxic poison, began as early as 1998. But there is evidence that the chemical is still currently being used.

“This explains why incidences of patients with strange diseases are being reported in health centres around flower farms,” he tells IPS. “Recently, a former worker died from what doctors said was chemical complications.”

Experts from the Kenya Medical Research Institute (KEMRI) told IPS the most prevalent diseases caused by chemical exposure include liver problems, respiratory complications and cancer, as well as sexual incapacitation.

“But the severe effects of these exposures could come many years later after workers have been sacked from their jobs,” Dr. Mohamed Karama of KEMRI tells IPS. “People should not work for extended hours in these greenhouses.”

The extent of human rights abuses in Kenya’s flower farms is no anomaly, more than a decade after civil society raised concerns. Documentaries have even been made capturing the trail of cruelty. A recent documentary, “Women of Flowers,” indicates that workers in the sector are so poorly paid that they cannot afford a hospital bill.

A parliamentary debate last year indicated that workers are paid about 47 dollars a month, way below the 118 dollars that Kenya’s constitution recommends for casual labourers.

Those working on the farms are afraid of speaking out for fear of losing their jobs and livelihoods. In addition, a report released this May by Workers Rights Watch, a registered association of workers, shop stewards and key leaders in Kenya, says 60 percent of female workers in the flower sector face sexual harassment.

The Horticultural Development Authority estimates there are more than 70,000 women working in the sector. The Kenya Flower Council (KFC) claims the sector employs close to 100,000 people. According to the KFC, small-scale farmers account for about 2,500 farms, while there are more than 150 medium and large farms.

Horticulture is one of the top foreign-exchange earners for Kenya and the KFC estimates that the industry generates about one billion dollars in earnings annually. But for thousands of women who work here, the flow in profits means suffering in silence.

Legal experts say the International Labour Organization (ILO) binds governments to protect its working force from industrial excesses and abuses.

At the same time, trade movements are backed by the Kenyan Directorate of Occupational Safety and Health Services, which is expected to empower trade unions to rally for the welfare of the worker.

“Labour inspections do not happen anymore,” Mary Kambo, a programme officer with Community Based Development Services, tells IPS while commenting on the implementation of the ILO Labour Inspection Convention.

The permanent secretary in the Ministry of Labour, Beatrice Kituyi, however, says such allegations are misplaced since records showing progress that Kenya has been making in implementing the convention can be accessed on the Ministry’s website.

“Kenya is on track in terms of implementing the ILO convention,” Kituyi tells IPS. “A lot of what we have done can be accessed at our website.”

Meanwhile, some unionists are hopeful that rallying for the welfare of workers in Kenya is not a lost cause.

The KFC also says it has rallied its members, who are mainly large-scale flower farmers, to comply with health and environmental standards.

According to Jane Ngige, KFC chief executive officer, flower farmers are expected to follow requirements such as trade, statutory, environmental, health, safety, traceability and social standards as enshrined in the Council’s Code of Practice and the Fair Trade set of rules for a safe working environment and fair working conditions.

“We do not allow farms associated with human rights abuses to be members of the council,” she tells IPS. “They have to comply with the ethical standards.”

But Benjamin Tilapei, a civil activist, tells IPS: “The flower council is only concerned about the rich producers and not the struggling poor working on the farms.”

By - - and David Njagi
NAIROBI, Dec 28 2011 (IPS)

For Collins Otieno, the onset of a new day ushers in mixed fortunes that can either earn him some money or expose him to infection, as he struggles to make ends meet by scavenging for waste.

Many waste collectors at the Dandora dump on the outskirts of Nairobi are unaware of the dangers posed by medical waste. Credit: David Njagi/IPS

On a good day, he can make as much as Ksh. 300 (about three dollars) – enough to buy a packet of maize flour and a handful of vegetables which will last two days.

Otieno does not know whether he has been infected by the medical waste he finds mixed with other solid refuse in the garbage sites.

“There was a time I found a dead foetus dumped in the garbage,” says Otieno. “I was really scared but I informed a neighbour who helped me report the case to the police. I also find syringes and other sharp objects in the dumpsites.”

According to Dr. Linus Ndegwa, the programme manager for infection control at Kenya’s Centres for Disease Control (CDC), at least 0.5 kilogrammes of medical waste are generated for every person admitted in a hospital, and 20 percent of such waste is potentially infectious.

That makes at least 3,740 kilogrammes of waste generated in a month at the Kenya National Hospital (KNH), where about 7,500 patients are admitted every month.

But the figure is probably higher nationally, which would be clear if there were a system in place to map out the extent of the problem in public health facilities, while also factoring in the waste generated by unlicensed clinics, says Ndegwa.

That is not an easy feat, given that a crackdown on backstreet clinics in Nairobi alone keeps netting more than 15 clinics operating illegally every month, according to the Kenya Medical and Practitioners Board.

It is a problem that watchdog bodies have linked to greed, corruption and a claim by some Kenyan doctors that they are poorly paid compared to, for instance, those working in South Africa. Hence the lure for parallel sources of income.

“There are some clinics that have not been licensed and so there is no way of monitoring how they dispose their waste,” says Ndegwa. “This means that they use dumpsites within residential areas. This is where the main problem might be right now.”

But the problem of poor waste disposal goes beyond monitoring, even with a government policy that guides disposal of medical waste.

According to the Ministry of Public Health and Sanitation, a Waste Management Guideline developed in 2008 rallies the country to dispose of health care waste through incineration.

But the guideline has hardly met its obligation partly due to what environmentalists see as duplication of roles between government ministries performing almost similar functions.

Some of these functions, like waste disposal, have been entrusted to the National Environment Management Authority (NEMA). But some ministries like the Ministry of Environment still claim to have a hold on environmental issues.

This is where confusion over the implementation of the guidelines seems to come from, NGOs say.

According to officials, the government policy puts an emphasis on incineration, a process that is said to be harmful to the environment. They say non-burn technologies could proof safer.

The Professional Association of Therapeutic Horsemanship International (PATH) says incineration, which is often fed with plastic syringes, rubber gloves, polythene wrappers and a collection of materials that contain chemicals such as chloride, harms both Kenyans’ health and the environment.

When burnt, explains Fred Okuku, an official with PATH International, the waste may emit substances such as dioxins, which have the potential of causing cancer.

“These substances have also been proven to be persistent organic pollutants, a term that means they do not break down easily,” explains Okuku. “So they linger in the environment causing global warming and ozone layer depletion.”

The Green Belt Movement (GBM) identifies disposal of medical waste through burning as a growing concern to global warming, but which is not being given the attention it deserves.

According to Benjamin Kimani, a programme officer at GBM, the fact that it is not possible to track the amount of medical waste incinerated in Kenya due to lack of data from the government gives the problem a serious edge.

“Most forms of burning produce carbon dioxide in the form of smoke,” says Kimani. “This carbon dioxide contributes to global warming which in turn causes climate change.”

The possibility of releasing hydroflourocarbons (HFCs) is also high, because most medical waste is in the form of plastics, says Kunga Ngece, the programme manager for environment and climate change at the Swedish Embassy.

Plastics are known to contain high levels of CFCs, which are released into the atmosphere when broken down through burning.

For now, the hopes of waste handlers lie in the promise for the search for improved technologies to dispose of medical waste, according to the Public Health Act.

Some, like using autoclaves to sterilise the waste by generating steam at 121 to 130 degrees Celsius to kill pathogens, are being seen as a likely alternative, according to Okuku.

“The waste is then shredded into a mass of harmless material that can be disposed of in a public disposal site,” says Okuku.

It will probably also protect hundreds of Kenyans who handle waste from diseases such as HIV, hepatitis B and hepatitis C infection, due to exposure to blood and other body fluids found in needle sticks and other medical waste, says Dr. Daniel Yumbya of the Kenya Medical and Practitioners Board.

Studies also say this is likely.

According to an update of the 2006 Health Protection Agency (HPA) report, one in three people are likely to get infected with hepatitis B, one in 30 with hepatitis C, while one in 300 would contract HIV due to exposure from medical waste.

For Otieno however, he has God to thank for his apparent health, because like hundreds of other slum garbage handlers who do not use protective gear, the young man often does not have time or money to go for medical checkups due to the nature of his work.

But for Titus, whom fellow scavengers like Otieno know by his first name, luck ran out. Titus developed oedema of the legs, a condition that medics say causes the affected parts of the body to swell and could be a result of burns to the skin.

He will probably serve as a warning to some 60,000 street children scavenging garbage dumps in Nairobi, who medical professionals say face a risk of serious infections that is as alarming as it is real.

According to P.W. Wanjohi, a senior public health officer at Kenya’s Ministry of Health, the children are also exposed to tetanus.

But the government is yet to table a study outlining the extent of the risk, he says.

“These children are vulnerable because of their tender age,” says Wanjohi. “Most of them are still developing their body immune system.”

Excerpt:

By David Njagi
NAIROBI, Aug 8 2011 (IPS)

Mourid Abdi Dolal and Wilson Rotich are both small-scale farmers who grow staple crops. But while one sells his produce at the local village market, the other farms to feed the growing number of refugees in Kenya.

Mourid Abdi Dolal tends to his farm in Dertu village in North Eastern Province, Kenya. Credit: David Njagi/IPS

For every successful harvest, Rotich puts aside a share of the yield, which he sells to WFP through smallholder friendly tenders. This, according to WFP officials, is a new approach to pool relief food locally from farmers instead of importing it from overseas.

The 57-year-old Rotich from Kenya’s Rift Valley Province has a 1.2 hectare farm in Transmara village where he practices crop rotation with corn, beans and a couple of other leguminous plants.

But until he learnt of the P4P project, his hard-earned yield hardly made a profit. These days, however, he can sell his yield to WFP at the national market rate. It’s about five times more than what he used to earn selling it locally.

Now Rotich sells a 90 kg bag of either dry maize or sorghum for between 42 to 51 dollars and a 90 kg bag of rosecoco beans will earn him up to 71 dollars.

Previously he would only earn 11 dollars for a 90 kg bag of dry maize or sorghum and between 10 to 13 dollars for a 90 kg bag of rosecoco beans.

“WFP officers told us to form farmer organisations through which they would (buy) our farm yields,” says Rotich. “This has helped my family because I am able to pay school fees and even foot hospital bills when one of us falls sick.”

The public information officer for WFP Kenya, Rose Ogolla, says P4P is a social enterprise keen on improving small-scale farmers’ access to markets as well inspiring them to invest more in agriculture through innovation.

According to Ogolla, the project is meant to involve farmers in the local market chain by either entering into a contract or through smallholder tendering.

At the contract level, she says, WFP negotiates with farmer organisations before the planting season to supply food at a given price where payment is made upon delivery, and can be used by farmers to access loans.

But where a farmer has entered into a tender, a competitive process is used to invite several farmer groups or agro dealers to bid for the supply of food to WFP, where they are not required to pay performance bonds, she says. (A performance bond is a fee that bidders are expected to pay to prove that they are able to finance a big tender contract during the public procurement process.)

“The project is meant to shore up the relief food supply chain as well as make agriculture attractive by offering farmers a ready market,” says Ogolla. “We do this by entering into a contract or a tender with farmers, which allows them to sell grain to us at the prevailing market price.”

A statement released in July by WFP indicates that farmers with less than three hectares of land in the Rift Valley, Western, Lower Eastern and Coast Provinces are currently benefiting from the five-year project that winds up in 2013.

All that a farmer needs is to be legally registered with a cooperative organisation, to be able to generate 56 metric tonnes of food from their small-scale farm, have proper storage facilities and a bank account.

The project comes at a time when Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki described the drought in the East African country as a national disaster. But the enterprise has won both praise and scorn from social and economic players.

Dolal, a pastoralist who has ventured into dry land farming, says he has not benefited from the P4P project because it has not reached North Eastern Province, a region that is home to a growing number of drought refugees in the country and from Somalia. Dolal, who is now practicing small-scale horticulture in his drought-stricken Dertu village, says he is able to harvest reasonable quantities of kale, tomatoes and cowpeas, but they can only provide him with a small income since he sells his produce to villagers at throw-away prices.

“I would be happy if WFP reached out to us with subsidies because my village is about 50 kilometres away from the Dadaab refugee camp,” says Dolal, who is assisted by the United Nations Millennium Village Project, an innovative model that helps rural African communities lift themselves out of extreme poverty.

“Our village is feeling the pressure due to a surge in displaced people fleeing from the drought,” Dolal said. Currently there are about 400,000 people at Dadaab, a majority of whom have fled the drought in Somalia.

According to Samuel Mbalu, an officer with the Millennium Village Project in Dertu, Kenya is encouraging pastoralist communities to invest in dry land farming to protect the region from periodic droughts, which he says affect almost 70 percent of the population.

According to the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, two consecutive seasons of failed rains means that North Eastern Province, like the Horn of Africa, has been reeling from the worst dry spell in 60 years.

Kenya’s Official Government Spokesman and Public Communications secretary, Dr. Alfred Mutua, said Kenya is faced with the double crisis of perennial droughts and a surge of refugees. However, he is not sure whether the country has the ability to feed the growing number of displaced people, despite the success of the P4P.

However, the WFP has indicated that Kenya could suffer a setback of 40 percent of relief food supply as the United States government prepares to pull out of the WFP relief programme.

Though the Africa Biosafety Network (ABN) says P4P could be useful in protecting Kenya from importation of food laced with Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs) as small-scale farming could increase the national food production.

Recently Kenya authorised the importation of GMO food, including GMO maize, because of an acute shortage of maize in the country. The move sparked controversy with many critics saying that the maize was not fit for human consumption.

According to the ABN advocacy coordinator, Ann Maina, the P4P project is a brilliant initiative and can address the food shortage.

“This is a good initiative because it encourages a home grown solution to the food crisis in the country and could prevent the country from importing maize laced with GMOs,” says Maina.

Excerpt:

By David Njagi
NAIROBI, May 16 2011 (IPS)

Farming with genetically modified organisms (GMOs) is becoming more widespread in Kenya due the promotion of biotechnology through clever schemes, exacerbated by the lack of a legal framework for the commercialisation of these controversial products.

The Kilimo Salama (Safe Farming) insurance scheme not only compensates farmers for losses incurred due to prolonged drought but also for destruction by excessive rains, according to Rose Goslinga, insurance coordinator at the Syngenta Foundation for Sustainable Agriculture.

The Syngenta Foundation is a not-for-profit organisation attached to the Syngenta Company that researches and produces GM seeds. The foundation is involved in the “Safe Biotechnology Management” (SABIMA) project aimed at promoting GM technology among small-scale farmers in Ghana, Nigeria, Burkina Faso, Kenya, Uganda and Malawi.

Goslinga explains the scheme in Kenya as follows: farmers that suffer crop losses are compensated through seed payouts. Initially, they purchase eight kg of seeds, which is the standardised measure for sowing one acre piece of land. The stockist issues the farmer with a code.

The farmer then sends the code to a fixed-line number through the mobile phone short messages service (SMS), which is then picked and registered at the UAP Insurance Company and the Sygenta Foundation databases.

Every crop season is monitored by a weather station fitted with solar technology to inform the insurance company of impending crop failure. Data is then processed to determine the compensation range, she says.

“If there has been crop failure, each farmer is informed through SMS about the payouts,” says Goslinga. “The automated weather stations keep the costs down by avoiding the need for expensive field visits to farms to ascertain risk and loss. This makes the insurance feasible both for the farmer and the insurance company.”

So far 12,000 Kenyan farmers have been enrolled in the scheme and, according to the Syngenta Foundation’s executive director, Marco Ferroni, some 50,000 others are expected to join.

“This initiative has grown from a small pilot programme in 2009 to become the largest insurance programme in Africa and the first to use mobile phone technology to speed up access and payouts to rural farmers,” says Ferroni.

The Kenya Biodiversity Coalition (KBioC) regards the scheme as part of seed-manufacturing multinational companies’ renewed appetite to use Kenya as a testing ground for GMOs by offering seeds to farmers.

Wanjiru Kamau, KBioC spokesperson, acknowledges that it is a noble idea to offer insurance to farmers who continually face crop failure but fidgets when she hears Syngenta is one of the organisations behind it.

“We doubt if it is in the interest of Kenyans because Syngenta is one of the leading multinational companies that manufacture GM seeds,” observes Kamau. “Pro-biotechnology groups resourced by seed-manufacturing multinationals are exerting a lot of pressure on Kenya’s policymakers to commercialise GMOs.”

GM technology has made inroads into agriculture in Kenya despite the legal framework not being in place yet.

As an example, the Bt cotton variety has been tested but Roy Mugiira, acting chief executive of the National Biosafety Authority (NBA), says his agency cannot yet sanction its release because regulations on commercialisation of GMOs have not been finalised.

According to Mugiira, three sets of regulations on contained use, environmental protection and export and import transit have been drafted and have to be scrutinised further before approval.

But an investigation by KBioC found that a seed variety had been planted by farmers in the Rift Valley region despite confirmation that it contained a GM strain. This, according to KBioC, happened before President Mwai Kibaki had assented to the Biosafety Act in February 2009.

“We suspected that a lot of GM seed, particularly for maize, was being imported from South Africa either as contaminated maize or plain GMOs,” recalls Kamau. “We went to the key maize-growing regions and did random sampling. We bought the seed and found it was laced with GM strains.”

After submitting the evidence to the agency in charge of seed imports, the Kenya Plant Health Inspectorate Services (KEPHIS), it emerged that there was no certificate of clearance to prove that the seeds were not GMOs.

“KEPHIS went public and denied the allegations but we knew from our networks in South Africa that the agency had not demanded a certificate which would have shown that the import was indeed GM maize seeds,” says Kamau.

“So even if Kenya has not commercialised GMOs, it is likely that farmers are planting GM seed without their knowledge,” says Kamau.

While GMO proponents deny that GM crops may already be growing on hundreds of Kenya’s small-scale farms, director of the International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-Biotech Applications (ISAAA) in Nairobi, Dr. Margaret Karembu, predicts that 10 African countries will have adopted the technology before 2015. ISAAA promotes the use of GM by poor farmers.

Excerpt:

By David Njagi
NAIROBI , Sep 14 2010 (IPS)

Like many primary school teachers in Kenya, Nemwel Mokua is not coping. He has to teach at least six subjects a day, which include a mix of arts, mathematics and science.

Brian Muriithi of Moi Avenue Primary School in Nairobi is a mathematics student. Credit: David Njagi/IPS

And the teacher of Le Pic Primary School in Riruta, Nairobi, lives in fear of school inspectors, who often grill him and his colleagues on the poor performance their school posts in mathematics and science subjects. In 2008, the first standard eight class Mokua taught scored an average grade of a D+. However, according to results of the 2008 Kenya Certificate of Primary Education this was also the average of other students across the country.

Like many primary school teachers in Kenya, Mokua blames the poor performance of his students on the little time he has to invest in mathematics and science-related subjects.

“Although my pupils have improved in mathematics and science-related subjects in the last two years, I must admit that the Kenyan education system places too much work on the teacher. He or she does not have enough time to invest in technical subjects,” said Mokua.

But the ministry of education insists that primary school teachers must be assigned at least six subjects a day. But education experts disagree saying this compromises the quality of education in Kenya’s primary schools. And a study released on Aug. 25 supports this.

The Classroom Observation Study in Nairobi by the African Population and Health Research Centre, indicated that mathematics teachers in Kenya’s primary schools had a poor understanding of the subject. And it has researchers questioning the quality of the country’s free primary education system.

The findings of the report shocked Kenyans after teachers only managed to score a mean grade of 60.5 percent in mathematics tests.

Researchers said they would have expected teachers involved in the study to score over 90 percent in the subject, but only a margin of 13 percent separated the teachers’ results from the pupils’.

In one incident, a teacher with over five years experience scored 17 percent on the test. APHRC senior research scientist, Dr. Moses Oketch, described the findings as ‘shameful’.

“This was very shocking to us,” said Oketch. “We expected teachers to be scoring a grade of more than 90 percent, but their performance is almost at par with that of their pupils, who scored 46.89 percent. Something needs to be done.”

According to the researchers, the poor performance could also explain why pupils continue to perform poorly in the subject.

But Peter Githinji, a mathematics teacher at Gikandu Primary School in central Kenya said teachers should not be blamed as government has failed to provide teaching aids that would demystify mathematics and science as difficult subjects.

“There is a nationwide attitude that mathematics and science subjects are difficult,” said Githinji. “I think the government is not doing enough to induct and encourage Kenyans to embrace these subjects.”

But the report has been subject to an ongoing debate, with teachers’ trade unions blaming government for its failure to train enough teachers to specialise in mathematics and science.

The Kenya Union of Post Primary Education Teachers secretary general Njeru Kanyamba said when Kenya launched the ambitious free primary education programme in 2003, it was done so without a clear plan on where the resources to actualise it would come from.

When the free primary education was introduced in 2003, over 1.3 million new students enrolled to attend classes that first week. And teachers still remain overwhelmed, Kanyamba said.

“Primary school teachers are overloaded by the number of pupils enrolled in one class due to shortage of staff,” said Kanyamba. “Because of the heavy responsibilities they have to bear, they do not get an opportunity to pursue professional development.”

He agrees that the findings of the report have a poor bearing on the future of science and technology in the country.

Ministry of education permanent secretary, Professor James Ole Kiyiapi, defended the free education programme adding that Kenya’s higher education system is based on a value-added model where students have been able to show progress in science and technology at this level.

Excerpt:

By David Njagi
NAIROBI, Sep 3 2010 (IPS)

When 11-year-old Ronald Gathece was placed on antiretrovirals (ARVs) after being diagnosed HIV-positive, medical staff did not monitor his reaction to the treatment. But the side effects had been so bad that the young boy had contemplated suicide.

“I would vomit and itch over my whole body after taking the drugs,” the now 16-year-old Gathece remembers. “This was made worse by the fact that there was barely anything to eat in the house because my grandmother was jobless. I stopped taking the drugs altogether and wished I could die since this was not an illness I had brought upon myself.” Gathece had been born HIV-positive.

Fortunately, an HIV community outreach programme affiliated to the Kenya Network of Women with AIDS (KENWA) in Mathare slum, a collection of slums northwest of Nairobi where Gathece lives, intervened. They organisation convinced him to resume his antiretroviral treatment (ART).

“When we found him he told us that there had been no follow-up from the dispensary’s health workers to find out how he was fairing with the ARV prescription,” says Grace Njinju, a community worker representing KENWA in Mathare. “We convinced him to start treatment again and also enrolled him in our orphans and vulnerable children feeding programme.”

But that was five years ago. Gathece is now a teenager but there still remain many other HIV-positive children who are finding it difficult to adhere to ARVs due to poor surveillance and monitoring of the effects by health workers. It is a situation that medics say affects the progress children make with ART.

But a new surveillance kit may enable medical professionals to map out children experiencing difficulties with ART and trace side effects of ARVs. The kit, which was unveiled for the first time in East Africa in Nairobi in mid-August, outlines guidelines on how to monitor the quality, safety and efficacy of medicines.

According to Dr. Jayesh Pandit, head of pharmacovigilance at the Pharmacy and Poisons Board, Kenya, trained health workers will spearhead the drug-monitoring process, where they are expected to gather details on side effects experienced by certain drugs, counterfeits and banned medicines, among other things.

“No medicine is guaranteed to be a 100 percent safe and so it is a double-edged sword,” says Pandit. “It is even worse among the paediatric population because globally very few clinical trials of medicine are conducted involving paediatrics. Most clinical trials are conducted in adults but when there is a relatively good safety profile that is when children are involved.”

One of the contents of the kit, says Pandit, is a medical form which health workers will be required to fill after interviewing patients on how they are responding to medication. The health workers, he adds, are trained to map patients on medication by consulting medical records at their working stations.

Pandit says the reports will be analysed and then finally sent to the international database, Vigibase, located at the World Health Organisation international drug monitoring centre in Sweden.

“This is a good initiative because we had problems handling ARV side effects among children,” says Florence Akinyi, an HIV/AIDS counsellor in Korogocho slum, Nairobi. “The mothers tell us the children would develop rashes and vomit after taking ARVs. Now we can be able to identify those drugs that are affecting the children and issue a fresh prescription.”

Inspired by the change that the drug safety surveillance process is expected to bring, paediatric institutions have joined the initiative to provide research on preventing mother-to-child transmission.

A two-year study is already being planned by the Elizabeth Glazier Pediatric AIDS Foundation, Kenya, and is expected to take place in South Africa, Zambia and Kenya. According to head of research at the foundation, Dr. John Ong’ech, the study will be tailored to meet the need for information on the cumulative long-term effects that ARVs have on children.

“This is not only an African concern but also a global concern,” says Ong’ech. “People have not really focused on what happens to the baby beyond preventing HIV transmission, and so there is no focus on how the drugs affect babies three years down the line.”

Excerpt:

Nancy Njeri’s life changed when she contracted HIV through a gang rape. Not only did the infection traumatise her, she was ostracised by close friends and neighbours whom she had known for almost a decade. She was fired from her job and when she attempted to sell vegetables, people boycotted her stand because of her status.

Nancy Njeri at her house in Korogocho slum, longs for a speedy AIDS tribunal. Credit: David Njagi

Sadly Njeri’s case is not an anomaly in Kenya. Research has shown that four out of five HIV-positive people are being ostracised by the larger community. And in a country where an estimated 1.4 million people aged between 15 to 64 years are infected with HIV, it represents gross human rights violations.

It is something human rights organisations in the country are looking to change by calling for the implementation of the AIDS tribunal which was gazetted in December 2009. It is expected to seek legal redress for past injustices against people living with HIV.

The 2010 Human Rights Count report released in May 2010, which is the first of its kind in Kenya, revealed that 82.7 percent of people living with HIV face abuses ranging from loss of life, denial of social security as well as health care, among others.

The report, conducted in partnership with the Global Network of People Living with HIV/AIDS and the National Empowerment Network of People Living with HIV, says there is a high likelihood a person living with HIV will be denied available treatment, care and support from public health facilities.

Despite the constitution of Kenya guaranteeing the right to life and protection from inhuman treatment and any form of discrimination, it does not directly address the rights of people living with HIV, according to Jacinta Nyachae, the executive director of the AIDS Law Project.

According to Nyachae, this could explain why most HIV-positive people who experience human rights violations fail to report them. She also links the low reporting rate to lack of awareness on where they may report as well as the process of seeking redress.

“This is why we are lobbying for a vigorous AIDS tribunal so that people living with HIV will be able to seek justice for past as well as future injustices,” says Nyachae.

The tribunal is meant to pursue redress for past injustices against people living with HIV. And though the list of injustices submitted to the tribunal’s chairman, Ambrose Rachier, is long, he says it is not meant to punish offenders who transgressed the rights of people living with HIV.

“Restitution will vary depending on the nature of the complaint and could include cash remedies, job reinstatement as well as requirement for violators to comply with the law as stipulated in the 2006 HIV Prevention and Control Act,” says Rachier.

This is good news to Njeri, who longs for a speedy tribunal. The 34-year-old migrant from Murang’a district in the Central Province of Kenya says the tribunal offers her a window of opportunity to redress her unfair dismissal.

“My boss demanded to accompany me to a Voluntary Counselling and Testing (VCT) facility to obtain a medical certificate after I began taking two days sick (leave) in a week,” recalls the mother of two. Njeri, who used to work as a maid, declined to allow her boss to accompany her for what should be a private test.

“I was immediately dismissed from my job without any explanation. My boss said he would call me on my cell phone but up to now he has never called me. I think I was fired because I was HIV-positive. I did not know what to do to seek redress because stigma was very high at the (time).”

Njeri is not the only HIV-positive person who has had found it hard to seek justice. Dr. David Bukusi, a psychiatrist and head of VCT at Kenyatta National Hospital in Kenya, says many HIV-positive people whose rights were violated are not likely to report these crimes because they are fearful.

“A person who is HIV-positive and whose rights have been violated feels that the society set them up to be infected in the first place but the same society does not want to have anything to do with the victim,” explains Bukusi. “So they are not likely to report a human rights violation because they are still in fear. But this could change if the AIDS tribunal is given powers for civil adjudication after the referendum.”

Another issue is lack of commitment from government, says Asunta Wagura, the executive director, Kenya Network of Women with AIDS. Kenya is signatory to the United Nations 2006 Political Declaration on HIV and AIDS that to develop regulations and other measures to eliminate all forms of discrimination against people living with HIV. But this is not put into practice.

“The fact that we don’t have justice nets that we can run to makes it difficult to seek justice even when one knows precisely a right has been violated,” says Wagura. “This is clear lack of commitment on the government side to universal access.”

She adds: “We need to see more uptake and action and good will implemented in terms of action for those that are violated in for instance, lawyers that deal with purely violation of human rights, courts that don’t delay their fight to resolve cases and more highlights of justice administered.”

Meanwhile, Njeri is hopeful that the tribunal will be made functional after Kenya’s referendum on Aug. 4.