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Home » The slum |
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History
Mathare valley is a large settlement which has about 500,000 inhabitants crammed into tiny wattle, tin and cupboard shacks in a hilly area that looks to be less than a square mile. It is reportedly the second biggest slum in Kenya after kibera.
The Mathare valley squatter settlement dates back to colonial days. Well-to-do whites in the city brought large numbers of poor girls from the country side to work for “slave wages” as house servants and baby sitters. The whites also brought young men from the rural areas for menial labour.
Neither the girls nor men were able to bring their families. Separated from their wives, many of the men had passing relationships with the young house servant rural girls. The girls’ only way of survival was to sell their bodies. Rejected and exploited, many moved into makeshift shacks on the edge of the city.
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They subsisted through prostitution and peddling of potent home-brewed liquor called chang’aa…occupations that remain for them a main source of income to this day.
Livelihood
Freedom from colonial rule brought no liberation to these outcast women. Today single mothers occupy 90% of the shacks in the valley. Living conditions are appalling. Mothers with 6 to 8 children reside in tiny, dirty-floored shacks (no bigger than the average bathroom).
The tin roofs leak and the floors turn muddy when it rains. These shacks are jammed next to each other, filling every available space. Latrines are few if any and no space to build any. Open, foul-smelling sewerage ditches flow by the edges of the huts. Children in Mathare are everywhere, undernourished but astoundingly full of life. A lot of teenagers and men seem to be jut hanging about.
Some of these men live with the women, but usually on an intermittent basis, often abandoning them in times of crisis.
Employment
It is estimated that only 5% of the adult population in the slum are legally employed at any one time. Nearly everyone subsists through the informal economy.
For most, it is easier to survive working in the informal economy than through paid employment, since wages for unskilled labour are so low. Wages are about 1200 Kenya shillings a month (about US$40.00), of the said salary Ksh. 300 are taken out in taxes.
The slumlords charge the residents up to Ksh. 800 a month (minus electricity which costs Kshs. 300 per month). The valley vigilante security group extorts a “security fee” of Kshs. 50 and if not paid will confiscate the family’s firebox (used for cooking). To travel to and from their place of work, bus fares usually costs at least Kshs. 20 per day. Add it all together and see what is sum total. Nothing is left for food, so most people simply can’t afford to be employed in the formal sector.
Aftermath
With high unemployment rate and the overall hopelessness of the situation, drunkenness is high, especially among men. There is also a lot of drug use, glue sniffing and bhang (marijuana) with a still limited but increasing use and trafficking of hard drugs as cocaine.
These conditions trigger high rates of violence, rape and any other crime in the slum and its environs. One reason why virtually no public services reach Mathare valley is that the government workers (expect for armed policemen) dare not enter. Strangers to the area are often beaten and robbed..
Abuse
Abuse by police is another common order of the day. Almost at random, police accuse women of buying or selling home brewed chang’aa, in order to extort money out of them. The woman who refuses to pay is thrown in jail. And once in jail, many detainees “get lost”. Years may pass before they go to trial or get released.
At some point it is convincing enough that the reason the police so brutally harasses the women for production and sales of chang’aa is that the national and multinational alcohol industries have such a powerful political lobby. It is an attempt to reduce a very major form of competition-through terrorization.
Even the dismal living quarters of people in Mathare valley are tenuous. When a mother leaves her small hut in the morning, she is never certain it will be there when she returns. Sometimes the govt. or a building contactor sends in bulldozers to “clean up” a portion of slum for an industrial project. But more often they simply pay thugs to set a fire. The cardboard shacks go up like tinder. It is unlikely for a week to go by without break up of fire burning several houses and people burnt to death.
HIV/AIDS
AIDS, which is such an enormous problem in most of Africa today, has an especially high incidence in these communities. Attempt to prevent AIDS through the use of condoms, has had its repercussions. In an area with less latrines or sewerage disposal, this preventive health measure has in some ways backfired with non-other toys; children use discarded condoms as “balloons” and sometimes contract diseases. The lack of safe disposal of condoms is a growing health problem.
Education
At least 20% of the children in Mathare valley go to school. Even though public schools are free, parents have to buy school uniforms, shoes, stationery and provide them with food, of which very few parents can afford. So many mothers can simply not send their children to school.
Mathare valley is a large settlement which has about 500,000 inhabitants crammed into tiny wattle, tin and cupboard shacks in a hilly area that looks to be less than a square mile. It is reportedly the second biggest slum in Kenya after kibera.
The Mathare valley squatter settlement dates back to colonial days. Well-to-do whites in the city brought large numbers of poor girls from the country side to work for “slave wages” as house servants and baby sitters. The whites also brought young men from the rural areas for menial labour.
Neither the girls nor men were able to bring their families. Separated from their wives, many of the men had passing relationships with the young house servant rural girls. The girls’ only way of survival was to sell their bodies. Rejected and exploited, many moved into makeshift shacks on the edge of the city.
|
They subsisted through prostitution and peddling of potent home-brewed liquor called chang’aa…occupations that remain for them a main source of income to this day.
Livelihood
Freedom from colonial rule brought no liberation to these outcast women. Today single mothers occupy 90% of the shacks in the valley. Living conditions are appalling. Mothers with 6 to 8 children reside in tiny, dirty-floored shacks (no bigger than the average bathroom).
The tin roofs leak and the floors turn muddy when it rains. These shacks are jammed next to each other, filling every available space. Latrines are few if any and no space to build any. Open, foul-smelling sewerage ditches flow by the edges of the huts. Children in Mathare are everywhere, undernourished but astoundingly full of life. A lot of teenagers and men seem to be jut hanging about.
Some of these men live with the women, but usually on an intermittent basis, often abandoning them in times of crisis.
Employment
It is estimated that only 5% of the adult population in the slum are legally employed at any one time. Nearly everyone subsists through the informal economy.
For most, it is easier to survive working in the informal economy than through paid employment, since wages for unskilled labour are so low. Wages are about 1200 Kenya shillings a month (about US$40.00), of the said salary Ksh. 300 are taken out in taxes.
The slumlords charge the residents up to Ksh. 800 a month (minus electricity which costs Kshs. 300 per month). The valley vigilante security group extorts a “security fee” of Kshs. 50 and if not paid will confiscate the family’s firebox (used for cooking). To travel to and from their place of work, bus fares usually costs at least Kshs. 20 per day. Add it all together and see what is sum total. Nothing is left for food, so most people simply can’t afford to be employed in the formal sector.
Aftermath
With high unemployment rate and the overall hopelessness of the situation, drunkenness is high, especially among men. There is also a lot of drug use, glue sniffing and bhang (marijuana) with a still limited but increasing use and trafficking of hard drugs as cocaine.
These conditions trigger high rates of violence, rape and any other crime in the slum and its environs. One reason why virtually no public services reach Mathare valley is that the government workers (expect for armed policemen) dare not enter. Strangers to the area are often beaten and robbed..
Abuse
Abuse by police is another common order of the day. Almost at random, police accuse women of buying or selling home brewed chang’aa, in order to extort money out of them. The woman who refuses to pay is thrown in jail. And once in jail, many detainees “get lost”. Years may pass before they go to trial or get released.
At some point it is convincing enough that the reason the police so brutally harasses the women for production and sales of chang’aa is that the national and multinational alcohol industries have such a powerful political lobby. It is an attempt to reduce a very major form of competition-through terrorization.
Even the dismal living quarters of people in Mathare valley are tenuous. When a mother leaves her small hut in the morning, she is never certain it will be there when she returns. Sometimes the govt. or a building contactor sends in bulldozers to “clean up” a portion of slum for an industrial project. But more often they simply pay thugs to set a fire. The cardboard shacks go up like tinder. It is unlikely for a week to go by without break up of fire burning several houses and people burnt to death.
HIV/AIDS
AIDS, which is such an enormous problem in most of Africa today, has an especially high incidence in these communities. Attempt to prevent AIDS through the use of condoms, has had its repercussions. In an area with less latrines or sewerage disposal, this preventive health measure has in some ways backfired with non-other toys; children use discarded condoms as “balloons” and sometimes contract diseases. The lack of safe disposal of condoms is a growing health problem.
Education
At least 20% of the children in Mathare valley go to school. Even though public schools are free, parents have to buy school uniforms, shoes, stationery and provide them with food, of which very few parents can afford. So many mothers can simply not send their children to school.