Press Releases

Stories of Hope Told on Air: Women Widowed by AIDS Get Back Their Land

Internews Kenya Jamila Ndinda, radio journalist, Kenya Broadcasting Corporation’s Kiswahili Service and Dorothy Awino, POLICY Project’s Kisumu field co-ordinator in the Internews studio.

(December 2, 2005) On December 1, World AIDS Day in Kenya was marked with seven radio stations telling the stories of disinherited AIDS widows who have managed to get back their deceased husbands’ land. The broadcasts followed a two-day training in Nairobi for senior journalists on the issue, organized by Internews and the POLICY Project.  

When Beatrice Nyanza’s husband died from an AIDS-related disease, her brother-in-law chased her from her husband’s land within a month after his death. She and her three children had to move to a mud hut. She could no longer afford to pay their school fees and could hardly feed them. One of her daughters was sexually abused and became pregnant at the age of 12.  

“After we played the story of Beatrice, who the POLICY Project had helped get her land back, we were flooded with text messages from people condemning the practice,” said Ann Mikia, the producer of A Stitch in Time, a one hour call-in HIV/AIDS program on the national English service of the Kenya Broadcasting Corporation. “We had Esther Gatua from POLICY Project and Catherine Mumma from the Human Rights Commission in the studio so they could tell listeners about their rights and how they could help them. I am so happy that we could bring some good news!”

“Widows whose husbands died of AIDS are more vulnerable to disinheritance than older widows," says Catherine Mumma. “AIDS widows are normally young, mostly in their twenties or thirties, as AIDS kills many of their husbands in their productive years…and young – and often sick - widows are often uninformed on their cultural rights and don’t have much negotiating power.”

Beatrice Nyanza’s Luo culture does not condone the disinheritance of women, yet many become victims of this practice. POLICY Project’s Esther Gatua says they worked with the Luo Council of Elders to help at least 20 women get back their land and make a living for their children. Many of these widows are still involved in negotiations.

“When we worked with the council, it quickly emerged that Luo culture wants people to look after widows," says Gatua. "But the opposite happens because people are misinformed and others abuse this fact. That is why it is so important that journalists help us in giving people access to the right information.”

Nandika Amatieku from the Catholic station, Radio Waumini, broadcast two programs on the issue, one on her show and one on her editor’s. "We both felt that this is an incredibly important issue to address," says Amatieku. "We have the responsibility to tell our audiences that there is hope and people who can help. No one has the right to discriminate against people with HIV.”

Amatieku says her editor has since asked her to produce four more radio programs on the issue, “due to the quality of the other two features and so that other presenters also have material on disinheritance for their programs.”

Julius Mungai from Coro FM is doing a two-part series of which the first part was broadcast on World AIDS Day. “All of our cultures in Kenya struggle with this problem, and AIDS has made it worse, because we now have far more widows than previously,” he says. “We need to help women affected by HIV to protect their rights and future.”

Internews’ Local Voices Project is funded by USAID through the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR).