OMNIVORES TO CARNIVORES: A TALE OF TEARS

 

Beneath the veneer of green succulent leaves and bushes thick and lush, emerged a howl of defiance and conviction; a storm to scream down the storm. At the center of it, all was the victim representative expressing the expansive victim desire to arrive at a comprehensive truth that refused to be restrained in the face of any political upset. Time stood still and allowed silence to break its banks.

It is an open secret that most Kenyans are now privy to the harrowing scenes pictured in The BBC Africa Eye documentary titled 'Sex for Work: The True Cost of Our Tea'. Gross and devastating are the revelations therein. Any attempt to internalize the corrosive effects that have permeated workspaces is revolting. The visual impressions created from an appreciation of the details are jarring to the heart. Merit has often stood the test of time as the litmus requirement for employment. Sadly, it now stands immaterial in the wake of licentiousness. The men with the meat who also wielded the knives decided to have female laborers dance to their caprices failure to which they would face the music. Necessity warranted surrender and most of them who were breadwinners yielded knowing that the alternative of cakes only existed in the abstracts of the French revolution.

To recap the events in brief terms, women who were victims of sexual harassment, recounted their exploitation by directors and supervisors either before employment to work in the tea farms could be guaranteed or upon confirmation of the same. Moreover, some victims who decided to speak to journalists on condition of anonymity confirmed that they were threatened with redundancy if they did not acquiesce to the demands of their superintendents. Some confessed to sleeping with the sexual predators so as to get preferential treatment with regard to the working location given that some areas of the farm had harder ground which made ploughing a nightmare. Driven by abject poverty, most of the women reluctantly agreed to bed their accosters.

The common denominator in all these stories is pain; untold and unquantifiable. The same was visible in the voices and faces of the victims who went on camera. Most of them have been left with lifetime scars that neither money nor apologies can remedy. They are saddled with consequences for actions that they neither authored nor consented to. In the framework of the bill of rights, there is a minimum content of human rights that accrues to all and sundry. The cases at hand are a demonstration of clear subversion of the inherent right to human dignity. Not only were the actions of the men in power inhumane but also cruel and degrading.

 For every transgression, a penalty is always affixed. The evidence in the instant case is overwhelming. Not only is it compelling but it serves broader public policy considerations. The testimonies of the victims confirm the existence of a disturbing culture laden with exploitation, harassment, intimidation, and unfair retrenchment. The culture has precipitated the breakdown of families and long-lasting personal health injuries. Sustaining the perpetration thereof is an absence of an effective reporting and oversight framework to see to it that complaints are conclusively investigated and culprits prosecuted. This was well documented. 

What then is the panacea for this malaise? The benefits of deterrence far outweigh those of remedies. Worded differently, prevention is better than cure. Under the devolved system of government that is in place, county governments ought to widen the job base so as to avoid constraining individuals, especially the minority and disenfranchised into occupations that they otherwise would not have chosen. A multiplicity of choices affords greater freedom to the bulk of the population that lives below the poverty line. Further, protective mechanisms should be formulated and enforced in order to safeguard vulnerable workers by providing them with avenues to ventilate their issues as well as facilitate transfer to safer working zones. Of utmost importance is bringing to book perpetrators of these vile actions so that justice cannot only be done in the abstract but executed in reality.

The gist of this commentary sustains the provisions of Art 27(4) of the constitution. Economic status, social origin, and sex inter alia should never be weaponized to discriminate against a certain class of persons. All actions on the contrary are an affront to both religious and secular laws.

 By Karl Simiyu. Karl Simiyu is a Law Review editor with the UNLJ.