Alie Eleveld
Society of Women against AIDS in Kenya
P.O. Box 3323
Kisumu
Kenya

February 13, 2003

Re: Women’s Property Rights Violations and HIV/AIDS

Dear Ms. Eleveld:

Thank you for inviting us to share some observations on the link between women’s property rights violations and AIDS in Kenya. We hope that you, the Society of Women against AIDS in Kenya (SWAK), and the other participants have a successful advocacy workshop.

The Women’s Rights Division of Human Rights Watch conducted research on women’s property rights violations in Kenya in October and November 2002 and will release a report on this subject on March 4, 2003. A focal point of our research was the way that HIV/AIDS magnifies the devastation caused by property rights violations perpetrated against women. We aim to use the report to explain to our global readership the extent and impact of women’s property rights violations and their link to AIDS, issues that the women of Kenya understand but that are not always prominent in international human rights and anti-AIDS circles.

Our research documented what you and your colleagues know only too well—that violations of women’s equal rights to own, inherit, manage, and dispose of property are rampant in Kenya. We found that women’s property rights are under constant attack from customs, laws, and individuals who believe that women cannot be trusted with or do not deserve property. Many women, including SWAK members whom we interviewed, told us that they were excluded from inheriting, evicted from their lands and homes by in-laws, stripped of their possessions, and forced to engage in risky sexual practices in order to keep their property. Divorced and separated women told of being expelled from their homes with only their clothing. Married women said they could seldom stop their husbands from selling family property. These violations have the intent and effect of perpetuating women’s dependence on men and undercutting their socioeconomic status.

Property rights abuses not only hurt women economically, they may prove fatal. As you know, since HIV/AIDS claims the lives of so many young adults, millions of women are widowed at a relatively young age, often having contracted HIV from their husbands. Widows may have to undergo customary "wife inheritance" or "cleansing" rituals—often involving unprotected sex—in order to keep their property, putting them at risk of contracting and spreading HIV. Domestic violence victims, who tolerate abuse because they otherwise have little chance of keeping their property and staying in their homes, risk HIV exposure due to the coercive sex, inability to negotiate condom use, and impediments to seeking health services that accompany domestic violence. Through interviews with scores of women and men from ten ethnic groups and a variety of regions, we learned of the brutal hardships women face when their property rights are violated, and how HIV/AIDS exacerbates those hardships.

Women described to us their fear that they had contracted HIV from having sex with men who inherited or cleansed them. For example, Jiwa Felister,¹ a fifty-five-year-old Luhya woman, said that six months after her husband died in 1991, her brother-in-law brought a jater (a man of low social standing paid to have sex with her to cleanse her of her husbands’ evil spirits) to her hut to cleanse her. She objected, saying: "I don't know this man’s HIV status, and if I die my children will suffer." Her brother-in-law and four cousins pushed the jater into Felister’s hut and he raped her. The brother-in-law paid the jater with a cow, chickens, and Felister’s husband’s clothing. The jater later built Felister a makeshift hut, and the house she shared with her husband was destroyed. Felister’s brother-in-law took over her land and furniture. She reported this to the village elder, who said he would look into the matter but did nothing. Felister, who now has a persistent cough and has lost much weight, fears she contracted HIV from the jater but has not been tested and cannot afford medical treatment.

Other women described the strains of caring for their children and managing their own survival when their husbands have died and they are infected with HIV. Adhiambo Nyakumabor, whose husband died of AIDS in 1998 and left her HIV-positive with five children, went from being relatively affluent to destitute after her husband’s family took her property. Her in-laws grabbed household items from her Nairobi home and took over her house and land on the island of Rusinga even though Nyakumabor helped pay to construct the house. Soon after her husband’s death, Nyakumabor’s father-in-law called a family meeting, told her to choose an inheritor, and ordered her to be cleansed by having sex with a fisherman. Nyakumabor refused, causing an uproar. She felt ostracized and quickly returned to Nairobi. A brother-in-law took over her land and livestock on Rusinga. She now struggles to meet her family’s needs, and her landlord in Nairobi’s Kibera slum has threatened to evict her because she cannot always pay rent on time.

In-laws are often unsympathetic to widows with HIV/AIDS who need shelter. Imelda Orimba, a twenty-five-year-old widow with AIDS, lost her home, land, and other property in the Bondo district when her husband died in 2002. She told her in-laws that she had AIDS and wanted to stay in the house. They snatched her property anyway and wanted her to be inherited. She recalled: "I told my in-laws I'm sick . . . but they took everything. I had to start over. . . . They took sofa sets, household materials, cows, a goat, and land. I said, ‘Why are you taking these things when you know my condition?’ They said, ‘You'll go look for another husband.’ My in-laws do not believe in AIDS. They said that witchcraft killed my husband."

Property rights violations often leave women impoverished and unable to afford the medical treatment they need to survive HIV/AIDS. Mary Abudo, a fifty-four-year-old Luo woman with eight children, said that when she and her husband separated, he kept all of the property, including vehicles, the land she cultivated, household goods, furniture, and bicycles. She received nothing. Her violent husband forced her out of their home, and she went to her parents. Abudo stayed in her mother’s hut, but was forced out when her mother died. Abudo, who now has HIV, lives in a Nairobi slum and cannot afford medical treatment.

With many women caring for AIDS orphans left behind by relatives who have perished, the last thing they need is to lose their homes and other property. Lucia Kamene, a thirty-three-year-old widow from the Kamba ethnic group, lived and farmed on land in eastern Kenya with her husband until he died in 1997. After he died, Kamene’s brother-in-law told her and her children to leave and threatened to beat and burn her if she refused. Kamene fled to Nairobi, taking only clothing for herself and her children and leaving behind livestock and other property. "My brother-in-law took everything," she said. "He did all this to evict me." Kamene’s brother-in-law and his wife now live in Kamene’s rural home. She lives with her children and those of her sister—who died of AIDS—in a metal shack with no running water or electricity in a slum.

Although the Kenyan government has increased its attention to the AIDS epidemic, official efforts to curb customary practices like wife inheritance and ritual cleansing, both of which can cause HIV transmission, have been inadequate. A UNAIDS official told us that Kenya has not done enough to address women’s property rights and their vulnerability to HIV/AIDS. The National AIDS Control Council acknowledges that Kenya’s serious policy and strategic gaps relating to women’s rights have contributed to the spread of HIV/AIDS. The government must address these shortcomings by changing discriminatory laws and practices; undertaking public education campaigns; implementing programs to prevent and remedy property rights violations, especially for women infected and affected by AIDS; and prosecuting rape and forced marriage cases (including in the context of wife inheritance and cleansing). Failure to do so may be deadly for women and will doom Kenya’s development efforts.

For the information of the workshop participants, Human Rights Watch is the largest international human rights organization based in the United States, conducts fact-finding investigations into human rights abuses in some seventy countries around the world, including the United States. The Women’s Rights Division of Human Rights Watch, which was established in 1990, documents and reports on state-sponsored and state-tolerated violence and discrimination against women in various regions of the world.

Thank you again for this opportunity to contribute to the advocacy workshop. We look forward to further collaboration and advocacy with you and other organizations in Kenya to eliminate women’s property rights violations and stop the spread of HIV/AIDS.

Sincerely,

cc: Joanne Csete, director, HIV/AIDS and Human Rights Program, Human Rights Watch

¹ Psuedonyms are used for all women mentioned in this letter to protect their privacy.