Interdisciplinary Seminar:
Education for Employment, Economic Independence and Decision-making
Convener: Suhad Jarrar-Browne, Great Britain

Gender Discrimination and Girl Child Labour in Rural Kenya: An Impediment to Education
Syprose Achieng Ogola, Kenya Association of University Women

Gender discrimination and girl child labour in rural Kenya characterizes a society in transition: even though cultural restrictions against the girl child are no longer strictly enforced girls still remain least educated. This paper explores problems of gender discrimination and girl child labour in rural Kenya and how it affects education. The MDGs articulate clearly the need to improve gender equality and the girl child’s right to education. However, the girl child is heavily burdened with domestic chores within and outside their homes. Research highlights poverty as a major cause of child labour, particularly among those orphaned by HIV/AIDS. However, unfavourable social-cultural practices, poverty, illiteracy, ineffective policies, inaccessible information flow, economic migrations, ineffective legal frameworks and HIV/AIDS all contribute to the problem. The young girls work in sand harvesting along river beds, agricultural work, domestic, charcoal burning, fishing industries and stone quarries as manual labourers.

For mitigation, it is important to develop educational awareness programmes to disseminate information on gender discrimination and children’s rights in order to stop girl child labour and further strengthened institutional capacities. To achieve implementation of Millennium Development Goals (Goals 1, 7 and 8) and further cure global imbalances, women must be empowered through education to attain gender equality and to fight poverty by eradicating girl child labour.

Syprose Achieng Ogola is a freelance cultural anthropology researcher, interested in integrating Culture, Gender and Development. She holds a degree in Anthropology from the University of Nairobi and a Postgraduate Certificate of Community Development from the University of Pavia, Italy, where she is currently completing a Masters degree in integrating Cooperation and Development