By Ongaga Ongaga
Last week, Kenya lost two pioneering women whose lives were synonymous with the struggle for gender equality: Catherine Nyamato and Dr. Phoebe Asiyo.
Their passing is not just a moment of mourning. It is a moment of reckoning.
As plans to lay them to rest get underway, the question that looms is not what they achieved, but what remains undone in the public arena.
Nyamato was the first Gusii woman to sit in Parliament, while Asiyo was a trailblazer in maternal health, civic leadership, and constitutional reform.
The duo were among the few who dared to challenge Kenya’s patriarchal political order.
They were delegates to the 1995 Beijing Women’s Conference, a global turning point that declared women’s rights as human rights.
Nyamato, Asiyo and their peers returned with a vision for Kenya: one where women would not just be seen, but heard; not just nominated, but elected.
Nearly three decades later, the two-thirds gender rule, enshrined in Article 81 of the Constitution, remains a mirage.
Women continue to be nominated to meet quotas (and are sometimes called the gender top up), not elected to lead.
Small numbers
In Gusii, a region with 13 constituencies, no woman has ever been elected to Parliament.
Even at the ward level, only a handful have broken through, and in Nyamira’s latest assembly, not a single woman was elected.
This isn’t just a regional failure but a national one.
The struggle for women’s inclusion in Kenya’s governance dates back to the 1980s, when women like Grace Onyango, Julia Ojiambo, and Asiyo herself began to push against the tide of exclusion.
The UN Decade for Women (1975–1985) and Kenya’s hosting of the 1985 World Conference on Women in Nairobi gave momentum to the movement.
But progress was slow. Women were often relegated to mobilizing roles in political parties, rarely given the chance to run.
A hard past
History has it that the 1990s democratization wave opened new doors, but the political terrain remained hostile.
Women faced harassment, lacked campaign financing, and were often denied party tickets, and those nominated, were treated as tokens.
The nomination of Nyamato and others by President Moi was a breakthrough, but it also underscored the reality that women had to be “granted” space that they rarely won it outright.
The 2010 Constitution was supposed to change that as it promised equality, affirmative action, and a new political order.
And yes, it delivered some gains and a good number of women now serve in both houses of Parliament, in county assemblies, and in the judiciary.
But the numbers remain dismal.
According to the National Gender and Equality Commission, Kenya has yet to meet the two-thirds gender threshold in any elective body.
The barriers are legal, cultural, economic, and institutional.
Many communities, including Gusii, remain reluctant to elect women, citing tradition and gender roles.
Also, most political parties continue to sideline female candidates and campaign financing is skewed.
Another critical area is gender-based violence (GBV), including harassment during campaigns, which deters many from running.
Worse yet, even when women do get elected, they often face resistance in leadership spaces.
Their voices are dismissed, and their proposals sidelined.
Kenya experiences a femicide crisis now and again. Equally, the rise in child pregnancies, and the underfunding of maternal health amount to social and political failures rooted in the absence of women at decision-making tables.
Nyamato and Asiyo didn’t just fight for seats but also fought for systems.
Asiyo, for instance, was a Commissioner in the Constitution of Kenya Review Commission, helping shape the very framework that now struggles to deliver on its promises.
Nyamato on the other hand, mentored young leaders, campaigned for inclusion, and remained active in civic education long after her parliamentary stint.
Their deaths should not be the end of their story but the beginning of a renewed movement that demands full implementation of the gender rule.
There is urgent need to reform party nomination processes, and investment in women’s political education and campaign financing.
It’s time to move beyond tokenism and toward transformation.
May the two icons rest in peace!
-The author is a journalist and member of the Kenya Press Club