Kenya without donkeys — is it the end of gender equality?
A demand for donkey hides in Africa threatens the livelihoods of communities in Kenya. Laura Kavata, Community Development Officer for Brooke East Africa explains.
Kenya is home to an estimated 1.8 million donkeys. I see them every day when I go out into the communities that Brooke works with. In most households I visit, donkeys are a key pillar of family life, supporting people with strenuous and time-consuming domestic tasks. They carry water from rivers, public pumps and wells; they transport farm produce from the field to the home or to the market; they help move around heavy building material to and from construction sites. It is clear that if a human were to perform these tasks, it would take an enormous amount of time and effort.
Donkeys are not only key in helping with household tasks — they also enable owners and their families to make a living through a variety of commercial activities, for instance transport or agriculture.
In Kenya, it is often men who own the donkeys, but the ones who care for the animals and rely on them for support with household chores are mostly women. In the poor rural communities I work with women could not survive without their donkeys. “My donkey puts food on the table and pays school fees for my children.” “Without my donkey I would have to walk 10 km each day to fetch water”. These are just some of the statements I hear day in, day out.
So what would happen if there were no donkeys in Kenya? I fear to even think about it.
This is a scenario that may soon become reality, if nothing is done. The communities Brooke supports are falling prey to a trend originating from very far away. China is buying millions of donkeys each year, and the demand for them is so high that they have to be imported from overseas. Kenya has four abattoirs that slaughter hundreds of thousands of donkeys each year.
Why? The demand is due to a traditional belief that ejiao, a gel-like substance made from donkey skin, is beneficial to health, a belief that is as false and harmful as it is widespread. Across Kenya, donkeys are being bought from owners for slaughter and skinning, and where owners are unwilling to sell, the animals are stolen. As a result, whole communities, already very deprived, are losing income and cannot meet their basic needs. Families begin to struggle to put food on the table, pay school fees or medical bills.
Who benefits? Traders, slaughter house owners and thieves make a handsome profit from the trade. The man in the household who decides to sell the donkey may benefit in the short term, but the whole family will lose out in the long run. With their donkey gone, the family may need to hire a motorbike at a considerable cost to help with household chores and perhaps seek employment at someone else’s farm to make ends meet. Inevitably, they will be left worse-off than before.
And who is affected the most? As Brooke’s research demonstrates, it is the most vulnerable groups in the community who are hardest hit by donkey hide trade: women, children, youth, the elderly, and people with disabilities…
Without donkeys women have to walk for miles every day to fetch water and spend long hours of back-breaking labour in the fields. This means they cannot participate in other social and economic activities. And it is not about gossiping to neighbours, but rather about participation in social gatherings where they can speak up for themselves, get organised and improve their status in society. Working outside the home or getting together with others to make community-level decisions gives women confidence and secures respect of other community members. It is no exaggeration to say that losing a donkey can roll back decades of progress in women’s empowerment and gender equality.
Children assist with domestic chores as well, which means that once the donkey is lost, they will miss school regularly to help their mothers fetch water, which results in poor performance that could lead to pulling out of school. Not surprisingly, girls are affected more heavily than boys. According to the World Bank, primary school enrolment of Kenyan girls went up by over 20% between 1999 and 2012, to reach 84%. If communities keep losing their donkeys and girls bear the consequences, this impressive achievement will go to waste. In the words of a female resident of Migwani, Kitui County:
My three donkeys were stolen in July 2018; one was expectant. My neighbours helped to trace them and unfortunately we found them slaughtered in a bush. Since then, I have been struggling to feed my family as my three children and my ailing sister who is also paralysed depend on me. I used to sell water to Syi Muu Primary and Kavaini Secondary Schools in my location and pay school fees for my children. I am now unable to continue with this contact hence (it is) difficult to see my all children through secondary education.
Brooke is working tirelessly on the ground with partner organisations across the country to help protect Kenyan donkeys. We support innovative community initiatives such as building shelters, ear tagging, fitting donkeys with neck bells and installing lighting at night. We encourage villagers to buy dogs or chip in to employ guards, we support them to develop community by-laws that govern donkey protection and give them the confidence to petition the local government.
There is so much that communities themselves can do and Brooke will stand with them as they fight to save their donkeys, their livelihoods, and their families.
So few people benefit and so many have a great deal to lose from the donkey hide trade. The Kenyan people owe a lot to the humble donkey, and this generation of women and girls simply cannot afford to lose them.