Thursday, March 5, 2009

A Mans' Village and a Womens' Village

Men have been built a village out of plastic rubbish nearby to the rebellious women whom have their own village Amoja in Northern Kenya, so they can keep an eye on them.

When a who is raped and thus becomes taboo, she has to go into the bush byherself without her children. One man explains that it is because it is her fault she is raped, by foreign soldiers she brings shame to the village. They say it's the foreign men that caused this problem and they don't know what diseases they carry now. Some women chose to join them because of violence by their families. One lady explains that her husband family decided she is too outspoken, and tried to persuade her husband to beat her. So she left to join the village. Her husband says the men do it to 'knock sense into her.... we don't give up our culture'.

Mans' village - made of plastic rubbish. They sleep all day and go to the womens' village for food. No animals because the women don't let them steal them from their womens' village.

Womens' village - houses properly constructed following the local traditional methods using cow dung, women work from dawn until night. They have animals and cooking facilities. The women will not allow the men to stay there.

Men are jealous of the womens' success with a new shop set up for tourists, the mens' village set up a similar shop, but unlike the womens' village shop, they hadn't got many customers!

Source: Witness News Report, Aljazeera, broadcast 5/2/09

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