When Jane Nolmongen’s husband expelled her from their family home in northern Kenya after discovering a British soldier had raped her, she went to a village run entirely by women, where men are not permitted.
Nolmongen has lived in Umoja village in Samburu County for the past 30 years, supporting her eight children and working land she will soon own, defying a culture in which women are considered the property of their fathers and husbands.
“The village has been a source of support for me because we have worked together to make progress in our lives and teach each other the importance of women’s rights,” said Nolmongen, 52, as she lit a fire to make some tea.
“Among the Samburu, we, as women, are just like rubbish to our husbands,” she told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.
Nolmongen was one of the first residents of Umoja, which was founded in 1990 as a refuge for Samburu women who had suffered sexual assault and been cast out and those fleeing child marriage or female genital mutilation (FGM).
Today, the women are on the verge of being granted the title deed to a tract of grazing land by the county government – a right they would never have had outside the village – and are inspiring other communities to follow suit.
“That was not possible for a woman in the (Samburu) community 30 years ago. She would be unable to own land or other property because her husband would not allow it,” Nolmongen explained.
Rebecca Lolosoli founded Umoja after being thrown out of her community and beaten by a group of men for speaking out against the practice of FGM.
While recuperating in the hospital, she had the idea to establish a village where men were not permitted.
Umoja, which means “unity” in Swahili, began with 15 women and grew to about 50 families at its peak, according to Nolmongen.
There are now 37 women and their children living in the village, consisting of homes built by the women for each other and a school, all surrounded by a fence of thorny branches.
The women make money by selling honey and handmade beads to tourists, but due to travel restrictions imposed by the coronavirus pandemic, they currently have no income, according to Nolmongen.
“After this disease (tourists) stopped coming, and we had to find other ways to survive,” she explained.
“If someone has money saved up, that is what they will use until we can sell the beads again.”
According to Henry Lenayasa, chief of the administrative region where Umoja village is located, the women’s decision to register their land is an example of the Samburu’s growing recognition of equal property rights.
“As administrators, we are bound by the constitution to ensure that women receive their fair share. “I usually hold barazas (meetings) in different villages to ensure that this message reaches them and to emphasize the importance of empowering girls,” he said.
COMMUNITY OWNERSHIP
Kenya’s constitution states that all women have equal rights to own property, but in practice, the land is typically passed down from fathers to sons, making it difficult for women to own land.
According to the Kenya Land Alliance, an advocacy network, women own less than 2% of all titled land in Kenya.
The Samburu use communal tenure, with men making all decisions about how land is used and allocated.
But the women of Umoja will soon have legal control over their own grazing land, a few kilometers from the village, which they purchased a few years ago with savings and donations.
The government is currently reviewing their application for a community title for the land that will be partitioned.
The land title, if granted, would help protect the women and their livelihoods from clashes over land and water that frequently occur between the Samburu and rival communities.
The Samburu County Lands Office’s spokesman could not be reached for comment.
SPREADING THE WORD
Umoja’s women also travel to neighboring communities to educate people on the importance of including women in land and property ownership.
When a woman leaves the village to return to her husband, the others make certain she does not revert to second-class status, according to Nolmongen.
“We step in and teach her about (her rights) and even follow up to ensure that she gets to enjoy these rights, including seeing whether she is dressed well and has ownership of some property,” she said.
In the neighboring village of Nashami, Samuel Leyapem, 75, said the women of Umoja had inspired his community to grant women more of the rights to which they are entitled over the last three decades.
“Nowadays, even in our village, women are allowed to own property such as cattle and even buy land,” he said as he sat in the shade outside his home.
“However, I would prefer it if, after the woman purchases (land), she involves her husband so that they are both happy.”
According to Juliana Nnoko-Mewanu, a researcher on women and land for the advocacy group Human Rights Watch, women should not feel compelled to exclude men from their lives from making decisions about their property.
“Women must not rely on women-only spaces to gain access to, use, control, and benefit from land and perceive tenure security,” she said over the phone.
“The government should put in place safeguards to protect women’s property rights during marriage, divorce, and in the event of a spouse’s death.”
Nolmongen is grateful in Umoja village that, despite never returning to her husband, she has sent all of her children to school and has agency over the land on which she lives and works.
It is a right she has instilled in her grown children, a police officer, and the other a journalist.
“They are now enlightened and can own property any way they want,” she said.
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