Kenya

Njeri Maina produced a documentary that speaks about the “Poverty Period” in Kenya. In her production, Njeri tries to build and weave a narrative that exposes the cultural stigma and stereotypes that are related to menstruation and how such socially constructed beliefs and ideas are used to discriminate against women and girls in public and private spaces. Njeri also explores how class status…

Young Black women are moving away from the "Stong Black Woman" narrative, and using online platforms to redefine digital feminism for them. Fungai Machirori explores how one young Black woman is attempting to hack the system. But is it working?

The system of integrated biometric database in Kenya, Huduma Namba, exposes multilayered challenges of statelessness, loss of basic human rights and availing government services. Through conversations with Mariam, a Nubian woman, we learn about the tedious and extremely long waiting period to obtain an ID card, without which people from ethnic minorities are not counted as citizens, and are…

Through two stories from Kenyan women, this article shows how women get harassed online, especially when they express themselves in ways that do not conform to the patriarchal order in the society which they live in.

How do we measure the difference between access to the internet for men and women? It is without a doubt that such gender internet access gap indicators contribute to defining goals for international and country-level policies. But it is important for us to interrogate the role of indicators and measures in access related work and research. Nic Bidwell analyses the use of tools proposed to…

Kenya has few protections for the people within its own country who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex, or queer. In this article Njeri Gateru traces their journey and that of the organisation National Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission in Nairobi - the difficulties they have faced and their use of online tools and spaces.

Neo Musangi is a performing and visual artist, academic and researcher. They are non-binary (preferred pronouns: they and them). In this interview Neo talks about various things – sexuality and gender based groups, the women’s movement and feminism, the role of visual and performing art and their disgruntlement with academia, being non binary openly and publicly both online and offline.

In this last column by Chenai Chair following the gender implications of the research by Research ICT Africa on access, she explores how researchers and activists can proactively explore gender dimensions. Even as ITU figures point to a progressively increasing gender digital divide, there are steps to take to understand and address this divide.

Gendered barriers to internet access can range from social and cultural barriers imposed within family or by partners to extraneous factors relevant to all - such as affordability of data and devices. In this column Chenai Chair examines the specificity of how access is different for women and men.

Africa is flooded with zero rating services such as Free Basics (Facebook’s zero rating scheme) and other subsidised data strategies. Do these schemes make internet more affordable and bring access to more people? In this column Chenai Chair examines whether ordinary people perceive such schemes as useful.