Despite poverty, lack of refrigeration and a constant battle for cleanliness, the residents of Kibera are resourceful with the food they eat and sell. Fried fish, samosas, and bean dishes are all on the menu, reflecting the cultural mix of those who call the area home
Continue reading...Category Archives: Global development
Schoolchildren in China work overnight to produce Amazon Alexa devices
Leaked documents show children as young as 16 recruited by Amazon supplier Foxconn work gruelling and illegal hours
Hundreds of schoolchildren have been drafted in to make Amazon’s Alexa devices in China as part of a controversial and often illegal attempt to meet production targets, documents seen by the Guardian reveal.
Interviews with workers and leaked documents from Amazon’s supplier Foxconn show that many of the children have been required to work nights and overtime to produce the smart-speaker devices, in breach of Chinese labour laws.
Continue reading...Kenyan MP forced out of parliament for bringing baby into chamber – video
An MP was ejected from the Kenyan parliament after she brought her baby into the chamber. Zuleikha Hassan brought her five-month-old daughter into the chamber because of an emergency at home, but she was ordered to leave because house rules state 'strangers' are not allowed in the area
Continue reading...‘I fear for the children’: the families battling to beat the odds in Kibera – photo essay
Family takes many shapes and guises – and in Africa’s largest slum the ties of love and blood are especially tested, cruelly sculpted by epidemics like HIV as well as strained by economic and climate crises
Rosemary Achia, 53, has two daughters. One has a job washing clothes in Nairobi and the other works in a hotel, so all seven grandchildren live with her.
“I am a little old for this,” she says. “I have been 11 years a widow. He was a good man but God gives and God takes away.”
Continue reading...Free speech and privacy on the wane across the world
Autocratic rule, increased media restrictions and use of mass surveillance affect almost half global population, researchers find
Nearly half the world’s people are living in countries where their freedom of speech and right to privacy are being eroded, researchers have found.
“Strongman” regimes seeking to squash voices of dissent and solidify political power are increasingly monitoring citizens through technology, cracking down on protests and jailing journalists, according to a ranking of 198 countries on issues including mass surveillance and data privacy.
Continue reading...Burundi malaria outbreak at epidemic levels as half of population infected
World Health Organization records 1,800 malaria deaths since start of year, almost equalling number of lives claimed by Ebola in DRC
A serious outbreak of malaria in Burundi has reached epidemic proportions, killing almost as many people as the Ebola crisis in the nearby Democratic Republic of the Congo.
The outbreak in the tiny Great Lakes country has infected almost half the total population, killing about 1,800 people since the beginning of the year.
Continue reading...Entrepreneurs beat the odds in Kenya’s anarchic mud city
Despite the poverty, lawlessness and pollution of life in Kibera, creativity still thrives thanks to a mix of determination, guts and luck. The Guardian spoke to people who have all three
Living in a slum is the reality for 1 billion people and rising across the world. More than half of Africa’s city dwellers live in “informal settlements” and the continent’s biggest is Kibera, in Kenya. We heard from people there about their struggles, aspirations and their innovation, busting the myths and stereotypes about being poor and powerless.
Continue reading...I spent 21 years of my life angry before I realised we in the slums must lead change | Kennedy Odede
Kenya is on the rise. Those living in slums such as Kibera will only share in the progress if urban solutions come from our community
The future is shining in Kenya. By many measures, life is better than it has ever been. A decade of steady economic growth has made Kenya a rising middle-income country. Reports on the health and education of the population show indicators are marching upwards. On the streets, a sense of hope and hustle prevails. This is progress.
Continue reading...‘If we don’t kill these people they will kill you’: policing Africa’s largest slum
As Kenya waits to hear if a police officer will be charged over the death of 23-year-old Carliton Maina, alleged unlawful killings in Kenya continue, leaving poor communities wondering if those charged with protecting them are simply killing with impunity
At a meeting between police and community members in Kibera, Africa’s largest slum in Nairobi, Kenya, where crime is acutely high and mainly unreported, the two sides try to find common ground.
There are courteous introductions and then an appeal for openness – and information – to help the police tackle Kibera’s crime problems.
Continue reading...Extreme water stress affects a quarter of the world’s population, say experts
Qatar, Israel and Lebanon top list of places with worst shortages, as climate crisis threatens more ‘day zeroes’
A quarter of the world’s population across 17 countries are living in regions of extremely high water stress, a measure of the level of competition over water resources, a new report reveals.
Experts at the World Resources Institute (WRI) warned that increasing water stress could lead to more “day zeroes” – a term that gained popularity in 2018 as Cape Town in South Africa came dangerously close to running out of water.
Continue reading...‘They just eliminate us’: Are Kenya’s police getting away with murder? – video
Promising student Carliton Maina was shot by the police in Nairobi. His mother believes he was murdered. As part of The Guardian's special focus on Kibera, we met residents of Africa's largest slum to explore their deep distrust of the police and find out what Maina's, and other recent deaths, can tell us about the dramatic rise in extrajudicial killings across Kenya.
How ‘Nigeria’s #MeToo moment’ turned against rape accuser
Busola Dakolo investigated by police after publicly accusing star pastor Biodun Fatoyinbo
Busola Dakolo said she had been expecting to hear from the police. Three weeks earlier the photographer had filed a case against the flamboyant Nigerian celebrity pastor Biodun Fatoyinbo, accusing him of raping her years before.
However, she recalled that the silver Toyota that tailed her as she was driving into her Lagos housing estate, and the white minibus with tinted windows already parked outside her house, had no police markings. By the time she got to her gate, the minibus had blocked her path. According to Dakolo, a man appeared and told her to get out of the car, get into the bus and speak to his oga – Nigerian pidgin English for boss.
Continue reading...Tanzanian investigative journalist in court over money laundering
Erick Kabendera also faces charges of leading organised crime and failure to pay tax
A Tanzanian investigative journalist has appeared in court charged with organised crime and money laundering.
Erick Kabendera, who was arrested by plainclothes policemen last week, appeared in court charged with leading organised crime, failure to pay tax amounting to 173m Tanzanian shillings ($75,000) and money laundering of the same amount. Press freedom advocates have called the charges “clearly retaliatory”.
Continue reading...Environmental activist murders double in 15 years
Death toll almost half that of US troops killed in Afghanistan and Iraq since 2001, data shows
Killings of environmental defenders have doubled over the past 15 years to reach levels usually associated with war zones, according to a study that reveals how murders of activists are concentrated in countries with the worst corruption and weakest laws.
At least 1,558 people in 50 states were killed between 2002 and 2017 while trying to protect their land, water or local wildlife, says the analysis, which calculates the death toll is almost half that of US troops killed in Iraq and Afghanistan since 2001.
Continue reading...‘We lose so many women’: the tragedy of unsafe abortion in Kibera
With terminations outlawed in Kenya, women and girls in its largest slum have to rely on expensive and unreliable under-the-counter pills, toxic chemicals or other homemade remedies. The consequences can be fatal
Podcast: The women fighting back in Kenya’s biggest slum
Edita Ochieng sashays up in her “This is what a feminist looks like” T-shirt – bright and new in a place where clothes are aged and faded.
“Got them,” she stage-whispers, a flash of silver foil in her hand. Four pills carefully cut from a longer strip. Ochieng has just been attempting to buy abortion pills from among the numerous kiosk-sized “quack” chemists in the Nairobi slum of Kibera. Just to show how easy it is.
Continue reading...The women fighting back in Kenya’s biggest slum – podcast
Edita Ochieng and like-minded women are taking a stand against endemic sexual violence and police corruption in Kibera. Plus: Angelique Chrisafis on why climate protesters in France are stealing portraits of Emmanuel Macron. Warning: this podcast contains references to sexual abuse
Edita Ochieng, like many women in Kibera, has been a victim of sexual violence. But with police corruption rife, she has banded together with several other women to bring perpetrators to justice as well as providing advice and counselling.
The Guardian’s Tracy McVeigh and Rod Austin spent time in Kenya’s largest slum with Ochieng and describe her extraordinary story to India Rakusen.
Continue reading...Saudi women can now travel without consent – but this progress is fragile | Madawi al-Rasheed
Bit by bit, the Saudi feminist movement is winning more freedom for women
After the lifting of the ban on women driving last year, the Saudi feminist movement can now celebrate its second victory: the authorities have announced that women can be granted passports and travel abroad without the consent of their male guardians. They can also register a birth, marriage or divorce. But they still cannot marry, or leave prison or a domestic violence shelter without the consent of their male guardians – often a father, brother, or other male relative.
The bizarre guardianship system is pervasive in Saudi Arabia. It stipulates that women are not legal persons, and consequently, they have to be represented by male relatives to work, marry, study, travel, and seek medical care.
Continue reading...Activist who branded Uganda president ‘a dirty, delinquent dictator’ is jailed
Stella Nyanzi vows to persist with criticism of Yoweri Museveni after receiving 18-month prison sentence for cyber harassment
Stella Nyanzi, the Ugandan women’s rights activist and staunch government critic who once called head of state Yoweri Museveni “a pair of buttocks”, has received an 18-month jail sentence after she was found guilty of cyber harassment against the president.
Nyanzi, a former researcher at Makerere University, was arrested on 2 November after posting a poem on Facebook that the state deemed abusive towards Museveni and his late mother.
Continue reading...Malawi reinstates ban on plastic bags as campaigners hail ‘fantastic victory’
Judges overturn injunction won by plastic manufacturers after thin plastic bags were outlawed
Malawi’s highest court has imposed a ban on plastic bags, a huge milestone for the government and environmental charities who beat off challenges from some of the country’s big manufacturers.
The government imposed the ban on thin plastic bags in 2015, but the move was overturned by the high court after a number of plastic manufacturers who operate in the southern-east African nation obtained an injunction, citing an “infringement of business rights”.
Continue reading...Rwanda closes border with DRC over deadly Ebola outbreak
Closure follows second Ebola death in densely populated city of Goma, on Rwandan border
Rwanda has closed its border with the Democratic Republic of Congo, where a deadly Ebola outbreak that started a year ago has killed more than 1,803 people.
The closure came after a second death linked to the Ebola virus was confirmed on Wednesday in the densely populated Congolese city of Goma, which is on the porous border with Rwanda.
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