Siaya Muungano Network, a community-based organisation advocating for women’s rights in Siaya County, has launched a campaign to educate county widows about their land and property rights.
In January 2022, the organization created the Nyandiwa Muungano Help Group, which now has 13 active members and holds monthly meetings. These gatherings provide a space for widows to share their stories, support each other, discuss income-generating activities, and learn how to coexist with in-laws and seek legal justice for their rights.
The group’s president, Dina Anyango Ahenda, 59, is dedicated to strengthening the group and plans to register it as a legal entity. Ahenda aims to start a business for income generation to improve the welfare of the widows.
“Many widows don’t know the importance of these groups,” Ahenda shared. “Personally, the engagement with Siaya Muungano Network and the group’s formation has helped me learn how to coexist with my in-laws and the village elders who used to threaten me. Before, I would chase them away from my home with a machete.”
The Nyandiwa Muungano Help Group continues to serve as a vital support system, offering psychosocial aid and empowering widows to advocate for their rights at the grassroots level.
Mary Akinyi
Mary Akinyi is a widow with a disability who is raising three daughters in the West Alego ward, Kabura Uhuyi sub-location. She faced stigmatisation and discrimination from her in-laws and her co-wife for being disabled, accused of the death of her sons, for being a mother to girls with no surviving son, and for the death of her husband. Before his death, her husband demolished her house and built a homestead for his younger wife, which is a taboo in the Luo culture, restricting Mary, the first wife, from living in the second wife’s homestead.
Deprived of all her husband’s property, she lived in a rented house with her children in Nyadorera centre and worked as a seamstress. In January 2022, Mary participated in a civic awareness and outreach program on land rights organized by the Siaya Muungano Network in the Usonga ward. This opportunity empowered Mary to understand her rights to land and property access.
She spoke out about her situation and was invited to attend a legal aid clinic that supported her in getting justice. Through the clinic’s Alternative Disputes Resolution mechanism, Mary’s co-wife disclosed the truth about her late husband’s will, the existence of a piece of land left for Mary, and rental houses in Nyadorera centre. Mary is currently pursuing succession processes to get this property registered to her name according to her late husband’s will.
Mary now lives peacefully and has committed to advocating strongly for widows’ access to land and property rights in her community.
“Widows ought to join support groups to help them gain knowledge, share issues to help come with practical solutions, strengthen their voices and speak one voice.” Mary Akinyi.
