Political life
Kenya has been an independent republic since 1963, and is a member of the Commonwealth. The Constitution, revised in 2001, established a presidential system. The President, elected for a five-year term by universal suffrage, appoints members of the government and selects a Vice-President. The National Assembly (a chamber of 210 deputies) holds legislative power. The country is divided into eight provinces, each managed by a consultative council whose members are appointed by the President of the Republic. Each province is divided into forty districts, with local councils. These local authorities enjoy a high degree of autonomy, with their own taxes to cover expenditure on health, equipment and education.
The family, a central value
In Kenya, ethnicity is still quite important (often more so than nationhood), and family loyalty is paramount in these groups. The sick and the elderly remain full members of the community.
Generally speaking, families in rural areas have 4 to 6 children; men may have more than one wife. Houses are made up of several dwellings: parents, young children and girls live in the main dwelling, while grandparents and older boys have their own huts. The women cook and clean, provide water and dry wood for the fire, look after the children and crops, and build their own houses, while the men are responsible for bringing home the money. Dwellings are made of unbaked brick, with thatched roofs and cement floors.
Many leave for the city in search of work. But the overcrowded cities often see people living in apartments or makeshift shelters. More than half of Nairobi's population, almost 2 million people, live in shantytowns or informal settlements. These people have little access to water, hospitals or schools, and live under the constant threat of forced eviction.
The situation of the children
Traditionally, it is accepted in Kenyan culture that children help their mothers in their various duties. This family help is observed by governments and international organizations, including Unicef and the International Labor Office. Described as domestic work, this kind of help keeps many children out of school. They work in the fields, in craft workshops, or come to haunt city streets to escape harsh living conditions. Girls are particularly hard hit, as they help their mothers with domestic chores and take care of younger children, so that their elders can work and feed the family. In some nomadic tribes, children as young as 3 or 4 are given the task of looking after the herds, as is the case with the Maasai.
The place of the elderly
In Kenya, demographic ageing is taking place against a backdrop of rapid economic change, accompanied by urbanization, changing community behaviors and practices, and population movements. The rural exodus has disrupted family structures, leaving the elderly to manage the economic and social affairs of rural areas. This has weakened traditional support systems and increased the difficulties faced by the elderly.
Despite government efforts to meet their needs, the majority of them still face problems that are essentially economic, health and social in nature. The elderly are the poorest of the poor, and often lack regular income due to limited employment opportunities. They are also more vulnerable to disease, malnutrition, loss of independence and abuse by family and society. Only a small percentage of the elderly population receives a pension.
The place of women
In rural areas, women run the family and the home: they look after food, collect firewood and supply water. Women make up an essential and generally free part of the agricultural workforce, controlled by the head of the rural farm or the heads of households grouped within it. On their own land, they receive little help from their husbands, except for heavy work. Even then, help is hard to come by. They turn to self-help associations, usually women's, and, within the limits of their possibilities, to salaried agricultural workers.
The informal economy (which represents 45% of the country's economic activity) is largely held by women. But they are also the most vulnerable, as informal businesses are synonymous with insecurity and poverty.
In urban areas, the emergence of an upper middle class has led to greater financial autonomy and reduced disparities between men and women. But Kenya remains a deeply patriarchal society, and there is still progress to be made on the gender equality front. While elementary school enrolment is high in Kenya, secondary education and university enrolment show phenomenal disparities. And in some communities, girls have to forego secondary education for fear of losing their "marriageability". Finally, at the top end of the scale, in the political arena, even though the 2010 constitution requires the number of male MPs to be no more than two-thirds, in 2019 only 21% of seats were held by women. Kenya remains far behind its neighbors.
In the poorest families, it's also the women who suffer. The risks of poverty-related illness are greater for women, aggravated by their reproductive role: marriages, early pregnancies and numerous sexually transmitted diseases (AIDS strikes women more than men; in Nairobi, the risk of contracting the virus is 90% for teenage girls forced into prostitution), genital mutilation, clandestine abortions, breast and cervical cancers, etc., all result in a high mortality rate. The most serious risk is women's lack of control over their own status, their bodies and their fertility, a lack reinforced by cultural and legislative codes.
Education, a sector in crisis
Since elementary school became free (in 2003, compared with 2008 for secondary school) and compulsory (in 2010) for all children aged 6 to 14, the number of children attending school in the country has risen dramatically. The increase in the number of children enrolled in schools has resulted in classrooms so overcrowded that administrators have had to postpone admissions for lack of space. In many schools, classrooms that once held 40 students now hold 70. And despite a spectacular increase in primary school enrolment, over 1.2 million school-age children remain outside the education system. (UNICEF, 2020).
While over 85% of school-age children today attend elementary school, factors such as costs, exam results and lack of facilities mean that many do not go on to secondary or post-secondary education. In some regions, such as north-east Kenya, affected by terrorist violence and repeated droughts, young people find themselves completely deprived of education for lack of schools and teachers.
With the Covid crisis in 2020, the sector has become even more fragile, as the closure of schools has meant a loss of income for thousands of teachers, forced to turn to other trades to survive.
Health and social protection
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), Kenya has barely one doctor for every 10,000 inhabitants, whereas the WHO recommends ten times as many. And three-quarters of them work in the private sector, at prices that are clearly unaffordable for almost the entire population. In the public sector, medical care is provided by government agencies, religious institutions and voluntary associations. Provincial hospitals are located in the main city of each province. At local level, there are also dispensaries and regional hospitals offering basic services.
Long considered one of the best on the continent, Kenya's healthcare system is now severely weakened by poor management, a cruel lack of funding, technical and human resources, and openly denounced corruption. Medical care is expensive, and most Kenyans will only see a doctor if they are really ill, preferring to rely on traditional medicine.
For many years, social protection has not been a priority for Kenya. In 2003, only 15% of the population had social security coverage. In 2014, a compulsory pension fund was set up for all citizens aged 18 to 65. Today, "The National Social Security Fund" offers social protection to all Kenyan workers in the formal and informal sectors. In practice, however, the extension of social protection to the informal sector, which accounts for 45% of the country's economic activity, remains a vast undertaking, and many of these workers, whose activities are irregular and low-paying, do not benefit from this fund.
