Judy Wathata Kinyua

University of Nairobi

DOI : https://doi.org/10.47191/ijsshr/v4-i9-21

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Abstract

Majority of the households in slums are female headed and have very low incomes. Survival for these women exposes them to illegal income generating activities including prostitution, hawking and making illegal local brews. This results in conflicts not just among themselves for competition over the shared resources but also with the law enforcement agencies. The study sought to establish the nature of conflicts prevalent in Korogocho slum, Nairobi Kenya. The study employed the Liberal Feminism Theory to conceptualize and analyze the nature of conflicts and focused on two ideals, equality and liberty to explain the consequence of the push factors leading women into slum life. The study respondents were women, local administrators and leaders, village elders, clinical staff and officers from Civil Society Organizations selected through simple random sampling procedure and purposive sampling. Data was collected using a standard questionnaires with both open and closed ended items. There was also a focused groups and key informants interviews. Quantitative data was exported to Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS) while qualitative data was thematically analyzed. Findings showed that most of the conflicts were: over competition for scarce resources. The conflicts resulted in physical battery. The slum vigilante groups led in the resolution of the conflicts with limited police intervention. Given that the groups were male dominated, women got little justice. The study recommends the need for the government and development partners to build inclusive community agencies to identify and respond to the common problems facing women in the slums instead of leaving the slum residents to solve them on their own.

Keywords

Women, Conflicts, Conflict Resolution, Vigilante Groups, Scarce Resources.

REFERENCES

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VOlUME 04 ISSUE 09 SEPTEMBER 2021