Ida Odinga criticises these MPs in rare interview

ODM Leader Raila Odinga’s wife, Ida Odinga, has hit out a section of Mps who have opposed the Gender Bill on the argument that “slay queens” would be nominated.

Ida said the MPs had reduced debate on gender representation to a “very level” by concentrating on personalities.

Mrs Odinga called on MPs to vote for the Gender Bill to meet the constitutional requirement of two-third gender rule and encourage women to get to positions of leadership.

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Women in politics

She said women face serious challenges when it comes to the election process, many of them being blocked from running in the areas where they are married while others are not accepted in their home areas after marriage.

“If things were right, women would have more say than men, but that’s not the case. It is because women have been socialized in a manner that they take a second ladder.”

“Every time you go to campaigns, first they want to know if you are married and if you are married where is she from? these issues come in and they mostly affect women who are married away from their roots. Then you are told you don’t belong here,” the former Prime Minister’s wife said.

She added that the nature of politics is that the environment is riddled with verbal and physical violence which prevents women from competing fairly with their male counterparts.

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Low public profile

“I hope and appeal to the Parliamentarians, who are going to vote this afternoon, that they will do the needful. Remember your mothers, your daughters, your grandmothers. This bill is for Kenyans,” Mrs Odinga said during a rare public interview.

The ODM Leader’s wife has in the recent past kept a low public profile following her daughter’s illness last year.

The mother of four had earlier lost her eldest son, Fidel Odinga, in 2015.