Women's activist groups in Kenya this week called
for a week-long sex ban in protest over the infighting afflicting the national
unity government.
Anne Njogu is The Executive Director for the
Center for rights, Education and Awareness. She is also a member of the G10 - a
coalition of women's groups in Kenya.
She told VOA’s Akwei Thompson from the capital, Nairobi that she was certain this call to action had a realistic chance of succeeding and achieving its objective. She said despite some attempted deviations of their objectives, the fact that the country is talking, for the first time about something, that otherwise would have been taboo suggests that they have achieved what she called a“double-kind” of success.
“Because we are not only focusing the people on the question of leadership in our country, but they’re also talking about issues they would never have spoken about,” said Njogu.
Sighting as another example of the campaign’s success, the executive director said a young had called her to tell her that she had postponed her wedding for another week, to allow her to participate in the call for action. “I think it is such stories that tell you that the thing is working,” she added.
But more concretely, she said men and couples who want to support the call to action would be signing a pledge of support on Saturday. Some supporters, she said are calling for an extended period of the ban – ranging from two weeks to even a month.
The women of Kenya are going to stay focused on the country’s reform “because we cannot leave the destiny of the country in the hands of two people (President Kibaki and Prime Minister Raila Odinga), “Njogu said
