Celebrating HERstories

Goi ng beyond th e Gender Rul e Debate Garnet t Achieng Oballa on w hy t he gender bill discussion in Kenya needs to go beyond t he ? Gender Rule debate.

In 2018, the Kenyan parliament went into a debate on the Gender Bill. See, Kenya?s parliament is currently unconstitutional.

According to the 2010 constitution, elective or appointive bodies should be made up of not more than ? members of the same gender.

W hen this quota is not met, the Supreme Court is supposed to dissolve the parliament and call for an election re-run. Currently, Kenya?s representation of women in parliament stands at 20.7%, which is way lower than the constitutionally mandated 33%. It does not make it any better that Kenya has the lowest representation of women in parliament in the East African region.

W hile the implementation of the Gender Bill has continuously failed, I believe that there is more to increasing the number of Kenyan