Squatting in Kenya
During the colonial occupation of
In recent years, community groups including indigenous peoples and squatters have challenged agricultural companies over land they regard as belonging to them following the foundation of the
.History
The Kenyan part of the East Africa Protectorate became the Kenya Colony, a British Crown colony, in 1920.[1][2] White settlers took 7 million acres (28,000 km2), including some of the most fertile areas. This land was named the "White Highlands" and native peoples were moved into reserves.[3]: 8 [4][5] For example, the Kikuyu people had most of their land confiscated and by 1948, 1.25 million Kikuyus were confined to 1.3 million acres (5,300 km2) and 30,000 settlers occupied 7.7 million acres (31,000 km2).[6]: 6 Kenyan labourers who worked for white settlers were permitted a small amount of land where they lived and grew food. By the 1920s, these labourers had become known as "squatters" by the British.[7]: 172–173 A similar process occurred in Southern Rhodesia and South Africa; by World War I there were estimated to be 100,000 such squatters in Kenya.[8] Some Kikuyu squatters moved to the Rift Valley because the land was more fertile than where they had previously lived and also settlers protected the men from conscription.[3]: 13–14 The farmers grew pyrethrum and produced tea and coffee.[3]: 81 Tabitha Kanogo argues in Squatters and the Roots of Mau Mau, 1905-63 that in the Rift Valley Province the settlers needed labourers and the squatters also wanted land to farm, so "each group needed to exploit the resources controlled by the other".[3]: 8, 18 She notes that alongside the squatting system there was also illegal squatting and a system in which labourers paid the settlers to use their land; in 1910, there were 20,000 Kikuyu farmers of the latter type. During World War I, the labourers maintained the farms on behalf of the settlers.[3]: 15–16
The 1918 Resident Native Labourers Ordinance was brought in as an attempt to regulate illegal squatting and to control labourers, with measures such as the restriction of labourers paying to farm land they did not own and the insistence that labourers must work at least 180 days in the year at a specific farm.[3]: 25, 37 Labourers reacted by going on strike, leaving their jobs, engaging in sabotage and starting to squat illegally.[3]: 36, 50 Settler attempts to control the squatters culminated in the 1937 Resident Native Labourers Ordinance, which stated squatters only had rights to live in the Highlands when allowed by a settler and enforced a limit on how much squatters could farm. Whilst World War II slowed its implementation, in the late 1940s its effects were felt and labourers were forced to organise in groups such as the Kikuyu Highlands Squatters Association.[3]: 97, 98, 103
As of 1945, there were over 200,000 licensed squatters in the Highlands and over half were Kikuyu.[3]: 126 Tensions between these squatters and the government continued to rise, and a flashpoint occurred when the government attempted to house displaced Kikuyu people in the Olenguruone settlement and the former squatters objected to being made into tenants.[3]: 107–108 The Mau Mau rebellion began amongst squatters in the late 1940s and by September 1952, 412 people had been jailed for allegedly being part of the insurrection.[3]: 136–137 [9] The events led to a forced displacement of squatters from the Highlands to reserves and there was a period of armed struggle between 1952 and 1956.[3]: 142, 162
The 1954 Swynnerton Plan recommended a new land registration scheme.[10] After independence in the early 1960s, peasants started squatting land in rural areas in the centre of the country and on the coast.[4] The Land Development and Settlement Board, founded in 1961, declared that Africans could now buy and farm land in the "White Highlands".[5] From 1963 until 1978, squatters successfully resisted a World Bank funded forestation project in Turbo by settling lands and ripping out trees. They appealed to Jomo Kenyatta who was first Prime Minister and later President.[11]
21st-century
The
GIS analysis was also used to plot occupations in the
Community groups including indigenous peoples and squatters have challenged agricultural companies such as Del Monte Kenya and Kakuzi Limited over land they regard as belonging to them following the foundation of the National Land Commission in 2012.[19][20] The following year, the National Land Titling Programme was launched.[21] In 2020, President Uhuru Kenyatta pledged to give two thirds of all Kenyans title to their land over the next two years. Land at Mikanjuni in Kilifi, Coast Province, was purchased by the state to give to 1,300 squatter families; Member of Parliament Gideon Mung'aro praised the initiative and commented that some squatters had been waiting 30 years to gain title to their land.[22] By July 2022, the National Land Titling Programme intended to issue over one million titles in 42 counties.[21]
See also
References
- ISBN 978-0-7146-1655-1.
- ISBN 978-1-57607-335-3. Archivedfrom the original on 2023-02-02. Retrieved 2023-02-02.
- ^ ISBN 978-1-78204-979-1.
- ^ a b Lele, Uma (1976). "On Developing Rural Settlements". Finance & Development. 13 (1). International Monetary Fund: 8–11.
- ^ JSTOR 1792632.
- ISBN 978-1-84603-024-6.
- ^ Ormsby-Gore, W.; Church, A. G.; Linfield, F. C. (1925). Report of the East Africa Commission (PDF). London: His Majesty's Stationery Office. Archived (PDF) from the original on 2022-11-25. Retrieved 2022-04-14.
- S2CID 153852304.
- S2CID 159532876.
- ^ Wily, Liz Alden (2012). "Land Reform in Africa: A Reappraisal". In Wily, Liz Alden (ed.). Rights to Resources in Crisis: Reviewing the Fate of Customary Tenure in Africa (PDF). Rights and Resources Institute. p. 2. Archived (PDF) from the original on 2022-03-08. Retrieved 2022-04-14.
- from the original on 2022-04-22. Retrieved 2022-04-22.
- from the original on 2022-04-08. Retrieved 2022-04-14.
- ^ .
- UN-HABITAT. Archivedfrom the original on 1 December 2021. Retrieved 12 February 2021.
- S2CID 154220992.
- .
- ^ Tickell, Oliver (9 January 2014). "Kenya - Forest people facing violent eviction". The Ecologist. Archived from the original on 22 April 2022. Retrieved 22 April 2022.
- ^ Rice, Xan (18 November 2009). "Kenya evicts thousands of forest squatters in attempt to save Rift valley". The Guardian. Archived from the original on 22 April 2022. Retrieved 22 April 2022.
- ^ "Squatters in Kenya's Murang'a county speak of 'colonisation' on ancestral lands". RFI. 26 December 2020. Archived from the original on 14 April 2022. Retrieved 8 April 2022.
- ^ Wangui, Joseph (20 October 2020). "Del Monte fight for prime Thika land to proceed in court". Nation. Archived from the original on 6 October 2022. Retrieved 8 April 2022.
- ^ a b Wambui, Mary (4 July 2022). "Uhuru Kenyatta directs CSs to issue title deeds to owners by July 20". Nation. Archived from the original on 25 November 2022. Retrieved 19 November 2022.
- ^ Lwanga, Charles (12 October 2020). "Uhuru plan to settle 1,300 squatters finally rolls out". Nation. Archived from the original on 14 April 2022. Retrieved 14 April 2022.
Further reading
- Amis, Philip (January 1984). "Squatters or tenants: the commercialization of unauthorized housing in Nairobi". World Development. 12 (1): 87–96. .
- Kenya - The Unseen Majority: Nairobi's Two Million Slum Dwellers. UK: Amnesty International. 2009.