Elizabeth Efiketi the gender crusader passes on

By KENNEDY OKWACH

Elizabeth Efiketi, a fierce defender of women and children’s rights (inset) will be remembered as the first woman to ever contest a parliamentary seat in Butere.

Her attempt to unseat the then area MP and former Assistant Minister Martin Shikuku in 1983 however proved unsuccessful.   Even though she unsuccessfully vied to represent Butere Constituency in Parliament she remained a strong political force in the area until her demise.

After what she described as oppression, rebukes, discrimination and mistreatment from male opponents during campaigns for the seat, the reputed ‘lawyer of the abused’ helped to found Rural Women and Children Rights Abuse Awareness in 1985 and later became a project manager, a position she has held until her demise.

It is after she joined politics that she vowed to challenge male chauvinism and constant attacks on her personal character. Efiketi dedicated her life to helping rural women who had no place to air their grievances and the societal problems bedeviling them. Because many women in rural areas are ignorant of their rights and mostly lack the financial muscle to seek medical and legal help, they suffer in silence. 

Health and legal

She formed the community-based organisation with an aim to highlight the difficulties faced by women and children in rural areas whose rights are violated and those who are exploited.

Through this organisation, Efiketi has helped women, children and men who are experiencing domestic violence and sexual abuse to seek health and legal assistance. Her work of defending the vulnerable in society was recognised when Fida-Kenya appointed her their Butere-Mumias District Monitor on Gender-Based Violence. Due to her dedication and strong will to fight for the rights of women and children, the then provincial administration through the district commissioner of Mumias offered her an office in Mumias town. The organisation that was originally started to serve the people of Butere now serves the whole of Western region, including neighbouring Nyanza. It handles defilement, rape, wife battering, teenage pregnancies, incest and wife inheritance cases.

Efiketi passed on Tuesday morning at St Mary’s Hospital while undergoing treatment after she suffered serious internal head injuries following a grisly road accident at Ekero Shopping Centre along Kakamega-Mumias Road. Kakamega Governor Wycliffe Oparanya described Efiketi as a jovial person and one of his fiercest political supporters.

 He mourned her as a hard working individual who was a close confidant despite them being related. “I had met her moments before her death when she called on me concerning a row over a dispute between tenants and the National Housing Corporation in Mumias town. We often discussed family, national and county issues,” said Mr Oparanya.

The governor was among the first people to arrive at St Marys Mission Hospital in Mumias after the accident. Efiketi succumbed to her injuries shortly after undergoing treatment. She leaves behind two children – a boy and a girl. The famously known Mtetezi wa Wamama na Watoto was born in 1958 in Emauko village in Butere. She managed a children’s home that houses more than 200 children who have been defiled and need regular medical checkups.

Before her death, she had a vision to establish a rescue centre in Western Kenya for victims of violence. She also pushed for the Government to employ at least one child/gender advocate in every district.