Tag: Kenya

How second-hand clothing donations are creating a dilemma for Kenya

Traders work in Gikomba market on July 10 2014 in Nairobi. Locally known as “Mitumba”, second-hand clothes trade has developed from mainly international charitable donations to become a bustling business sector. (Pic: AFP)

When a fire razed East Africa’s biggest second-hand clothes market in Nairobi last week, the deputy president, William Ruto, rushed to the scene to assure traders that the government would do everything to help them to rebuild their destroyed stalls.

But perhaps a more important question Ruto should have answered is whether Gikomba market will be in business a year from now if a proposed ban on the importation of second-hand clothes into east Africa is approved.

In January, east African head of states suggested that Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania should stop importing used clothes in an effort to revive the local textile industry.

Kenya alone imports around 100 000 tonnes of second-hand clothes, shoes and accessories a year – many of which were originally donated to charity shops in the west. According to Oxfam, more than 70% of the clothes donated globally end up in Africa.

“The items [charity] shops fail to sell or which they reject are considered for resale elsewhere,” says Ian Falkingham, who manages an Oxfam-owned outlet in Senegal, Frip Ethique. “Items which are in good condition and suitable for warmer climates are exported to Africa.”

This second-hand clothes chain sees, for example, a Forever 21 dress once worn by a young woman in London find its way into the wardrobe of a university student in Kenya. University of Oxford sweatshirts, I love London T-shirts, hoodies emblazoned with the star spangled banner or the Union Jack – and even the Confederate flag – are common wear for people who have never set foot in the UK or the United States.

But if the ban goes through, Kenyans will be compelled to buy locally produced clothes, giving textile manufacturers a chance to reclaim the market they lost to cheap imports from abroad.

Death of an industry

The decline of Kenya’s textile industry dates back to the early 1980s, when market liberalisation policies spearheaded by the World Bank opened up the local economy to second-hand clothes. Previously, they had been distributed for free among the poor.

But the superior quality and originality of the clothes soon caught the eye of the young urban population, creating a demand that led to the collapse of many of Kenya’s once robust textile companies, among them Rift Valley Textiles (Rivertex) and Kisumu Cotton Mills (Kicomi).

According to local media reports, 500 000 people were employed in the textile industry in the 1980s. Today, that number has fallen by more than 96% to around 20 000.

Banning the importation of used clothes is the government’s latest effort to save an industry that is all but extinguished – and is intended to try to recover some of those lost jobs.

But, paradoxically, a ban could devastate another group of Kenyans who depend on the second-hand clothes trade to make a living.

William Ng’ong’a, who sells used clothes at Gikomba, is aware of the possible ruling that could destroy the business his family has spent the past two decades building. “I am in this business with my parents, I joined them 10 years ago just after finishing university. It’s the only work I know,” he says.

Ng’ong’a says the business imports an average of two containers of clothes a month, for which they pay £16,700 in tax. The containers are offloaded from ships at the port town of Mombasa from where they are transported by road to Gikomba market.

A glorious, chaotic ecosystem

Gikomba is the ground zero of second-hand clothes in Kenya, and it’s from here that merchandise is redistributed to retailers all over the country.

Unapologetic for its mess of noise, dust and a confusing maze of timber, iron sheets and cardboard stalls, clothes hang from the stalls in a wild cacophony of colour and design.

If the clothes are not on hangers, they are bundled into giant heaps which the sellers invite buyers to burrow into to find what they are looking for. Often, the best dresses or blouses are buried at the bottom of the pile.

Buyers and sellers jostle for space in the cramped, often muddy, lanes, where the set price of goods is usually so low that it is ridiculous to bargain for anything cheaper. Even so, the more industrious sellers can be heard shouting themselves hoarse, advertising bargains designed to lure even the most reluctant of buyers.

Gikomba pulses with a spirit borne of genuine camaraderie: conversation and laughter punctuate the exchanges between the buyers and sellers.

It is a glorious, chaotic ecosystem that has survived catastrophe after catastrophe, including a terror attack in May last year that killed 12 people and more fires than the traders can count.

Ng’ong’a says he directly employs 15 people, most of whom are casual labourers, and is afraid that they might all be left without a source of income if the East Africa Community goes ahead with the ban.

“I have a degree in commerce which I have never used, but I might be forced to fall back on it if the ban goes through. I am not particularly excited to have to join the overcrowded job market and become a paper pusher because I really love this job,” he says.

And paid employment of another kind is unlikely to match his current earnings: Ng’ong’a reveals that each container imported at £38 574 brings in a profit of over 90%.

Charles Kuria’s store is one floor above Ng’ong’a’s. It is bigger, and filled floor to ceiling with bales of clothes.

Kuria has had this store for almost two years, but he has been in the businessmuch longer, starting from the bottom as a hawker selling a few pieces on the streets to a big time wholesaler who now only sells in bales to retailers.

He imports his stock directly from the UK, the US, Canada and Belgium.

Although Kuria is reluctant to discuss his profit margins, he admits to living a comfortable life where money has ceased to be a worry. His is a business that has a sizeable staff, with four people employed permanently and up to 20 casuals each time new stock comes in.

He says the real casualties of a ban would be the casual workers who depend on odd jobs to earn a living.

“If these people are deprived of an opportunity to make honest wages, they might turn to crime and contribute to making Nairobi an unsafe city,” says Kuria.

Striking a balance

Former Kenya Association of Manufacturers boss Betty Maina is cognisant of the risk that comes with cutting off the second-hand clothes business without a fall back plan for the hundreds of thousands it employs.

In an article for a local media company, Maina says that it is possible to grow the local textile industry without taking jobs from the people who need them the most.

“Granted, the ‘mitumba’ sector is a source of employment and many people earn their livelihood from the business. Measures that would shut down the flourishing trade at a go would not be very welcome.

“But why not streamline activities in the sector in such a way that the local textile industry is able to reap the benefits of providing quality products at an affordable price and at the same time providing thousands of jobs directly and millions more in downstream activities?” she asks.

The thousands involved in the second hand clothes trade will know their fate once the East Africa leaders meet for the November summit, during which the issue is expected to come up.

In the meantime, it remains to be seen how the government will walk the tightrope of reviving the local textile industry without annihilating Gikomba – and the people that thrive on it.

Jacqueline Kubania for the Guardian Africa Network

9 years ago

Kenyan protesters warn Obama against bringing up gay rights during visit

Kenyan anti-gay protesters marched in Nairobi on Monday, warning US President Barack Obama not to speak about gay rights when he visits the country of his ancestors later this month.

“We do not want Obama and Obama, we do not want Michelle and Michelle,” they chanted. “We want Obama and Michelle and we want a child!”

Kenyans, some of whom are members of a Christian lobby group, hold a protest against homosexuality in the Nairobi, on July 6, 2015, signalling to US President Barack Obama their opposition to gay rights ahead of his visit to Kenya. (Pic: AFP)

“It is important for us as Kenyans to know that the US is not God, and thus we cannot follow them blindly,” said protest organiser and evangelical Christian pastor Bishop Mark Kariuki.

Kariuki said Obama was welcome to visit “his father’s home” but should not “talk about the gay issue.”

The demonstration drew around 100 people, wearing T-shirts and waving posters with the slogan “Protect The Family”.

It came a day after Kenya’s Deputy President William Ruto, who is on trial at the International Criminal Court in The Hague accused of crimes against humanity, told worshippers at a church service that homosexuality was “against the plan” of God.

“We have heard that in the US they have allowed gay relations and other dirty things,” Ruto said, according to the Daily Nation newspaper.

“I want to say as a Christian leader that we will defend our country Kenya, we will stand for our faith and our country.”

Afraid Obama ‘will preach equality’

Ruto made similar comments in May when US Secretary of State John Kerry visited Kenya.

Homophobia is prevalent in many African countries and gay sex remains illegal in several nations, including Kenya where it was outlawed under British colonial legislation.

The march Monday was organised by the Evangelical Alliance of Kenya, a coalition of several churches.

Obama’s visit later this month will be his fourth to Africa since becoming US president, but his first to Kenya since taking office in 2009. He will also travel to Ethiopia.

Kenyan artist Dayan Masinde, displays a piece of his art in Nairobi on June 26, 2015 depicting US President, Barack Obama with Kenya’s President Uhuru Kenyatta sharing a local dish. (Pic: AFP)

Pro-gay rights activists warned of rising intolerance in Kenya, including attacks on homosexuals and alleged cases of lesbians being raped to “cure” them.

“The anti gay movement is spreading to Kenya… cases of discrimination and violence are increasing because of the very homophobic speeches,” said lawyer Erik Gitari, from the National Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission.

“Obama has been associated with equality and liberation, being the first black US president. They are afraid that he will preach equality here,” said Gitari.

In conservative Christian and Muslim countries in Africa, homophobia is a vote-winner.

In Uganda, legislators sought the death penalty for homosexuality and although the anti-gay law was watered down and then overturned, ruling party MPs remain eager to see it passed.

Nigeria and Gambia have passed tough new anti-gay laws in recent years, with Gambia’s President Yahya Jammeh, calling homosexuals “ungodly, Satanic… vermins [sic]” in a speech last year.

In Kenya, too, a cross-party parliamentary group is seeking stricter application of existing anti-gay legislation.

9 years ago

How Britain’s khat ban devastated an entire Kenyan town

Khat’s psychoactive ingredients – cathinone and cathine – are similar to amphetamines but weaker, and can help chewers stay awake and talkative. (Pic: AFP)

In a quiet and unassuming town tucked away in a hilly part of eastern Kenya, the British home secretary Theresa May’s name is spoken with barely concealed anger. Since her role in the ban of the town’s most valuable export, she’s become a universally vilified figure.

For more than two decades, Maua enjoyed booming business propelled by the growth and sale of khat, known locally as miraa, a popular herb whose leaves and stems are chewed for the mild high they offer.

But last year the UK, home to one of khat’s biggest markets, declared the stimulant a class C drug and banned all imports, prompting Maua’s rapid descent into economic purgatory.

Since the early 1990s, Britain has imported between 2,500 to 2,800 tonnes a year, according to the Home Affairs committee. Although in its initial findings the committee could not find a compelling health or social reason to ban khat, May’s argument – that continuing to allow trade in the UK would spawn off an illegal export corridor to other European countries where it is banned – won out in what became a controversial cultural debate.

Now, a year after the legislation was signed, residents in Maua have been hit hard by a shrinking local economy that has left many facing poverty.

Losses

Edward Muruu is one of the earliest pioneers of the khat export trade. A retired headmaster at a local primary school, he says he has experienced unprecedented losses since the ban came into effect.

“I used to ferry miraa (khat) from Maua to Nairobi four times a week using 27 Toyota Hilux trucks, where it was repackaged for export. I used to make around £2 100 a month. Now I am lucky if I bring in £250 per month,” he says.

With the European market gone, the only place left for Muruu to sell his stimulant is Somalia, where consumers now dictate how much they pay – and it’s not much.

“The other issue with the Somali market is that the only people who can transport miraa to Mogadishu are Kenyan Somalis, meaning that the rest of us drivers have been put out of work,” says a former worker of Muruu’s, who only identified himself as Kanda.

According to Kanda, if non-Somali drivers attempt the trip they are attacked along the journey. For a town of its size and location, Maua has a disproportionately large number of residents of Somali heritage, most of whom are involved in the khat trade as middlemen. They are also big consumers themselves.

‘Miraa was the heartbeat of this town’

The effects of the London ban have reached everybody in the khat micro-economy, from the big name traders like Muraa to the small fish who depend on the trade for their survival.

Although Muraa has made investments that have cushioned him against the blows of a deeply depleted income, those at the lower end of the food chain have not been so lucky.

Miriti Ngozi, chairman of the Miraa Traders Association, says that many farmers and traders are no longer able to pay school fees or even buy enough food for their families.

“You have to understand that in this region, subsistence farming has long been overshadowed by the more prestigious miraa farming. Now that people are no longer making money from miraa, they do not have money to buy food and many families are sleeping hungry,” he says.

Yet many remain reluctant to uproot their khat crops and plant maize instead, holding on to the hope that their fortunes might one day return.

Pius Mbiti, a trader in his early 30s, is a qualified vet but says that he makes most of his income from picking and selling the stimulant.

“On a good day I used to make up to £12 which, when supplemented with earnings from my vet practice, was enough to take care of my family. But since the ban I am lucky if I make even £2 pounds,” he says.

He cannot rely on animal medicine any more either because farmers no longer have the money to pay for his services.

This narrative is familiar across the town, with the common refrain being that shutting down miraa imports to London is killing businesses indirectly linked to the herb.

“The miraa trade was the heartbeat of this town; it drove everything else. With revenue from miraa so drastically low, people no longer have the money to buy things,” says Lawrence Kobia, who owns a bookshop. He says that his sales have plummeted by more than 40% since last year.

Seizures

In its submissions to parliament, the Home Office committee warned that banning khat would result in the formation of a black market – as seen in the United States and other European countries including Norway and Holland.

Although initially khat sold for between £3 and £4 a kilogram in Britain, the committee reported that if it was banned the price could increase to £318, similar to its price in the US.

Their predictions turned out to be true: there has been a proliferation of the stimulant in London since the ban. While the border police have no statistics on seizures, the London Metropolitan police says it has handled a number of khat-related offences.

A spokesperson said that in the first six months after the ban came into effect, a total of 68 warnings and 14 penalty notices were issued. In addition, 36 people were arrested for possession of the herb, four of whom were later charged.

In the meantime, the Kenyan government is trying hard to get the ban lifted, with President Uhuru Kenyatta even promising the farmers in Maua as recently as February that he will petition to have the market reopened for them.

The farmers, however, see this as a cheap political move to whip up support, complaining that no tangible rewards have come from promises made by politicians regarding the matter in the past.

But the squabbling over high-level politics in Kenya and the workings of the parliament in Britain are meaningless to the miraa farmer in Maua, whose only worry is where the next meal will come from.

Jacqueline Kubania for the Guardian Africa Network

10 years ago

Maasai women lead a solar revolution

(Pic: Green Energy Africa)

Not long ago, dusk was a time of unease for the people of Magadi, a village in Kenya’s Kajiado County.

As the sun set, farmers began worrying about their cattle, easy prey for hyenas and leopards. Children lit fires to finish their schoolwork, filling homes with smoke.

Now as darkness falls, lights flick on across this sleepy hamlet, thanks to the efforts of more than 200 Maasai women at the frontline of a solar power revolution.

The women, trained in solar panel installation, use donkeys to haul their solar wares from home to home in the remote region, giving families their first access to clean and reliable power.

“For us, the impact of solar technology is unparalleled,” said Jackline Naiputa, who heads the Osopuko-Edonyinap group, one of the five women’s groups leading the alternative energy charge in the area.

Renewable energy developer Green Energy Africa provides the group with solar products – including solar panels, lights, and small rechargeable batteries – at a discount. The women sell the products at a profit of around 300 shillings ($3) each, which goes into the group’s account to buy more stock.

Naiputa, who in 2014 lost 10 goats to wild cats, said her teenage son used to spend cold nights in the cattle enclosure to guard their herd. Now, with solar lamps hanging around her homestead, Naiputa and her four children can sleep soundly in the warmth of their home.

“The light scares the hyenas away, so we don’t have to worry about losing our animals at night,” she said.

Women entrepreneurs
The Women and Entrepreneurship in Renewable Energy Project (Werep), an initiative by Green Energy Africa, aims to turn Kajiado County to solar power by training women as solar installers and encouraging them to market the clean energy concept to fellow pastoralists.

The solar energy drive began in around November 2014, and so far about 2 000 households in the country have adopted solar technology. Barely seven months into the effort, the area has jumped from zero solar energy consumption in 2006, according to estimates by the government’s Arid Land Resource Management Project, to 20 percent today, energy experts say.

Compared with kerosene and firewood, the cost, convenience, and health benefits of solar are proving hard to resist.

“The nearest market where one can charge a cell phone or buy kerosene is 15 kilometres away, and it is only held one day a week,” Naiputa said.

Before going solar, her household used to spend 40 Kenyan shillings ($0.40) a day on kerosene and over 100 shilling ($1) a week charging the two family cell phones.

As well as saving villagers money, the switch to solar could help slow down the destruction of Kajiado County’s trees, which now cover just 1 percent of the area’s land, according to the National Environmental Management Authority.

And as more villagers choose clean solar energy over wood and coal to light and heat their homes, fewer will suffer the effects of inhaling the smoke that comes with their nightly fires. According to a 2014 World Health Organization report, household smoke was responsible for 1.6 million deaths worldwide.

Solar potential
Edwin Kinyatti, the CEO of Green Energy Africa, said the uptake of solar energy was likely to continue “since it is affordable to most Kenyans,” even though cultural barriers, low literacy levels and difficult terrain had all presented some obstacles to the Kajiado County effort.

Even as the country’s middle class continues to grow, access to electricity remains low, with 68 percent of the population either too poor or too remote to connect to the national grid.

“Kenya has great potential for the use of solar energy throughout the year, thanks to its location near the equator,” said Lamarck Oyath, an energy expert and managing director at Lartech Africa Limited, a technology and consultancy firm. “Yet so far, the country gets less than 2 percent of its energy from solar power,” he said.

For villagers like Naiputa, however, solar is proving a big benefit – and not just because of the clean power it provides.

“Our community customs do not allow women to own any property,” she said. “But now women here own the solar technology, and it is something we are very happy about.”

Leopold Obi for the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of Thomson Reuters, covers humanitarian news, climate change, women’s rights, trafficking and corruption.

10 years ago

Life and opportunity in the world’s biggest refugee camp

An overview of part of the eastern sector of the IFO-2 camp in the sprawling Dadaab refugee camp, north of Nairobi. (Pic: AFP)

Soon after dawn Bashir Bilal sat outside on his usual plastic jerry can surrounded by young girls and boys chanting Quranic verses.

Each child clutched a worn plank of wood instead of an exercise book, writing on it in Arabic script with ink made from charcoal and water.

In Somalia the Islamic madrassa is often the only education on offer, but here in the Dadaab refugee camps it is just the start. Later in the day the children are able to attend, for free, primary and even secondary school while scholarships are available for college education.

Uprooted and dispossessed, life as a refugee is tough. But for the Somalis who have for years, or even decades, called Dadaab home there are opportunities too.

Bilal (47) used to live in Afgoye, a breadbasket town 30 kilometres northwest of the capital Mogadishu. When he came to Dadaab five years ago he found better schooling options than at home where fees were high and children would often spend their days helping out on the family farm.

“Children here in Dadaab have the privilege of better education,” said Bilal. “They will bring change in Somalia when they go back.”

Just when they will go back is contentious. Kenya’s government has hosted refugees from Somalia since 1991 when civil war tore the country apart. Since then Dadaab has grown into the world’s largest refugee settlement, with over 350 000 residents.

Camps seen as a security threat
Kenya now wants the camps shut down claiming they are a security threat used by members of al-Shabab, Somalia’s al-Qaeda branch, for recruitment, training and downtime.

Albert Kimathi, the area’s top government official who, as deputy county commissioner is responsible for security, called Dadaab “the breeding ground, the training ground” for al-Shabab. “They use the camps as safe havens,” he said.

“I’m not branding anyone a terrorist, but quite a number of these terrorists come from Somalia. These people are one and the same,” said Kimathi.

Hopes and dreams

People living in the camps find such allegations perplexing.

Yakub Abdi left the southern city of Kismayo in 2011 after al-Shabab gunmen accused his father of being a spy, and then executed both his parents. He hates and fears the militants and so volunteered to chair a neighbourhood watch group in one of Dadaab’s five camps.

“This is not the place they are recruiting,” said the 29-year old father of two. His 260 fellow volunteers in the Community Peace and Protection Team keep tabs on new arrivals to their camp, reporting anyone suspicious to police.

“Shabab are not here,” said Abdi, but he warned that the invisible, largely unprotected border just 80 kilometres to the east, meant they were not far away either.

Despite living in temporary shelters and barely subsisting on food handouts, Dadaab is not a place of universal misery and hopelessness.

“People think there’s no life in the camps, but there is life,” said Liban Mohamed, a 28-year old filmmaker from Kismayo, in southern Somalia. “There are problems here but there are also hopes and dreams.”

Mohamed’s dream is to be resettled in the US where his mother and siblings already live, and to continue making films. For others the dream is closer to home, and nearer to being realised.

Mohamed Osman is a trained medical officer who for the last 15 years has provided free consultations, affordable drugs and in-patient treatment at his private pharmacy. He left Somalia in 1992 seeking safety and prosperity and in Dadaab, his family and business have thrived.

“Children in Somalia have no hope,” said the 42-year old father of 12 children from two wives. “My children are learning here.” He has no desire to return to Somalia because “there is still fighting there”.

A short way from Osman’s pharmacy, along flooded and uneven dirt roads, the daily delivery of khat, a herb with a mildly narcotic effect when chewed, was unloaded.

A broker who runs four pick-ups piled high with 50-kilogramme sacks of khat into Dadaab every day said he sells out his entire stock without fail, making more than 30 000 shillings (280 euros) on each truck.

Traders deliver khat to the market at IFO main camp of the Dadaab refugee camp. (Pic: AFP)

In a frenzy of activity the retailers, including 43-year old Fatima Ahmed, split the sacks open on the ground sorting the vivid green shrub into kilo bunches. Prices are seasonal and low during the current rainy period, but still, Ahmed said, she buys at 100 shillings (1 euro) and sells at 150 shillings (1.40 euro) making a modest daily income. “It’s a good business,” Ahmed said.

Sellers’ profits are ploughed back into Dadaab’s thriving economy which, according to a 2010 study, is worth around $25 million (22m euros) a year. The research, commissioned by Kenya’s Department of Refugee Affairs, found that Dadaab also earned the nearby non-refugee, or host, community $14m (13m euros) a year in trade and contracts.

Mini Dubai

Each camp has its own market but Hagadera is the most established. A Kenyan official described it as “a mini Dubai”.

A Somali refugee shops for fresh produce at a market within the Hagadera camp of Dadaab. (Pic: AFP)

There are hotels and restaurants selling grilled camel meat, chilli hot samosas and spiced tea with camel milk, general stores with shelves of pasta, rice, milk powder and sugar – much of it smuggled in from Somalia and sold at a steep discount – electronics shops with the latest smartphones, narrow alleys stuffed with stalls selling new and secondhand clothes, fabrics and shoes and shady passages lined with tarpaulins piled with mangos, avocadoes, potatoes and onions.

Ali Saha, a 23-year old university graduate who runs a cyber café, said he wants to return to Somalia, just not yet.

“Education is a privilege and from that angle being a refugee is not that bad,” he said. “I should return so I can help my community in Somalia but I need to go back when my country is stable.”