Watching her walk up and down, staring at nothing, one could mistake Mrs. Caroline Auma (not her real name) for cracking her head to accomplish a major assignment worth helping her improve on her family’s living standards.
But nay. This is not what was disturbing her mind that sunny afternoon.
Her family had been plunged neck-deep into unwarranted brawling, fighting to free itself from retrogressive traditions perpetrated by her still backward in-laws. She was to fight a losing battle between her and the in-laws, who vowed to throw her away from her matrimonial home because of her failing to give birth to a baby boy.
Mrs. Auma, a widow and a mother of five daughters, was in that state of affairs that afternoon after she virtually lost all her household items, several structures including three houses, and poultry to acts of thuggery directed at the family by her in-laws.
“We are now homeless, spending cold nights with no food and proper clothing,” cried Auma during an interview with reporters at her temporary rented house within Opoya market, in the Uriri division of Migori County.
Trouble for the family started two weeks ago soon after the burial of Auma’s husband, Thomas Okwiri, who died two months ago. “My in-laws immediately ordered me out of the home, accusing me of letting down their brother by not giving him a son to inherit his property,” she said amid flows of tears down her cheeks.
Her relatives allegedly stormed her compound, pulled down all structures there, and destroyed households worth thousands of shillings before escaping with her poultry and assorted animals, including dairy cows.
Her mistake? She had failed to heed their warning ordering her to vacate the home and village for embarrassing their dead brother.
The attack on the family one Saturday afternoon has been widely condemned by many Opoya villagers, including the area assistant chief, Francis Otieno (not his real name), who suspects the fallout within the family could have been sparked by a long-standing land dispute.
The anecdote above, however, mirrors tens of primitive incidents that so far have been recorded in the past within families from the Luo community.
“Some family members from the community have completely refused to see the light and stop glorifying the boy child, who they believe should be the sole inheritor of the family property and especially land,” says Dr. Charles Ojweke, a member of the Luo Council of Elders in Migori.
The elder rues that a host of men from the community still regard a woman who fails to give birth to a male child as an outcast and an embarrassment to the family and therefore should be disinherited of all the husband’s wealth and be thrown out of the family immediately after her husband dies.
He says the primitive belief among some Luo men is currently one of the agendas that the elders’ council is pursuing to demystify and force families to accept all genders of children in a family as equal within the context of property inheritance.
“It is not the wish of any woman to give birth to girls only. I wish women were in control of their bodies; such an imbalance in gender birth can never happen,” said Dr. Ojweke when his opinion was sought on Mrs. Auma’s case.
Mrs. Peninah Oloo, a church elder in one of the local churches in Migori, confirms that incidents of widows getting disinherited of their dead husbands’ wealth have become too common within the Luo community on the basis of them not giving birth to sons.
“Such cases are being perpetrated against helpless widows by in-laws still nurturing old-age backward traditions in many parts of the country,” she notes, urging the government to be acting fast to punish the culprits.
Mr. Paul Nyakwaka, from Soweto village within South Kanyamkago Ward, says it is a sign of primitive thinking for one to insist that a woman bear him a baby boy. “Children, whether a boy or a girl, are just the same. There is nothing special a boy can do that a girl can not handle,” he stressed during a recent press interview.
He appealed to his fellow Luo men to stop embracing retrogressive traditions that discriminate against women.
Mrs. Anjeline Milanya was, however, categorical that men who still embrace traditions that harass and put women to uncalled-for sufferings should be arrested and severely punished.
“We are living in a modern world today, and it is very unfortunate that some people still practice what our grandfathers did many years ago,” she quipped during an interview.
By Faith Opar and Collince Oki
