Why?

As the Kenyan Peasants League's Women Collective we have seen a lot of cases of women being chased out of their land, and women facing gender-based violence with nowhere to go, and because we do not have the funds to support them KPL Women Collective are crowdfunding money to buy land for these women to have a safe haven.  

KPL Women Collective conducted a case study on women’s communal land rights in ten clusters, through fields interviews and documenting the stories through videos, with support from Coventry University. The target groups were young women, married women, divorced women, widows and also men, with the aim to include all their perspective on women’s access to communal land and decision-making.

What we saw is how patriarchal values are keeping women from exercising their constitutional rights to land, by chasing them of their land and grabbing it. Especially widows are at risk of having their land taken away by their late husband’s family.

Another issue women face is gender-based violence in their homes, with many of these women not having a safe place to go to escape their situation, especially in rural areas. Our case studies in urban areas showed that violence against women is also deeply connected to women’s access to land.

Land is a feminist issue

Losing your access to land is both an issue of housing and an issue of livelihoods, as most of these women are peasant farmers who eat what they grow. Having access to land to live on and farm on will be life changing for these women. Land is a feminist issue, and there is no food sovereignty without feminism.

We are raising funds to buy land for these victims of land grabbing and a safe space for victims of gender-based violence. This will provide the women with the stability of a home, and the possibility to sustain themselves by growing their own food together, while we support them to fight for justice in their cases.

CONTENT WARNING - GENDER BASED VIOLENCE

How?

We want to buy 4 hectares of land in Migori county where we have the most members, and will be able to reach the most women. We are hoping this will be the first step to having communal spaces like this in all the counties of Kenya we are active in.

The money will be used to buy land and materials to build enough houses that still leave enough land open for the women to grow their own food together. We have estimated the price of 1 hectare of land with houses is 5.500 Euro pr. hectare. So we need 22.000 Euroes to reach our goal!

If we reach beyond 4 hectares anything is possible! We can buy land in other counties to house and support women affected by land-grabbing and gender-based violence. We can buy extra land, for all of the women collective to organize, learn and farm together. We can build more buildings for women to hold large meetings and workshops in. We can buy land to have plant nurseries of indigenous species to share freely with the community. Anything is possible!

Please, support our crowdfunding, and help us support the women affected by land grabbing and violence in our communities.