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Squatting in Kenya

January 01, 1970

During the colonial occupation of Kenya, Black Africans working on farms owned by white settlers were called "squatters" by the British. As of 1945, there were over 200,000 such squatters in the Highlands and more than half were Kikuyu. The Mau Mau rebellion began amongst these squatters in the late 1940s and after independence in the early 1960s, peasants started squatting land in rural areas without the permission of the owner.

Map of slums in Nairobi, including Kibera and Mathare

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 National Land Commission. In 2007, 55 per cent of Kenya's urban population lived in slums, in which people either owned, rented or squatted their houses and as of 2019, 4.39 million people lived in the capital Nairobi, with around half living in informal settlements such as Huruma, Kibera and Mathare.

History edit

 
A 1909 oil painting of a Kikuyu woman by Akseli Gallen-Kallela

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 edit

 
A 2015 photograph of shacks in Kibera, Nairobi

The United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UN DESA) estimated in 2007 that 55 per cent of Kenya's urban population lived in slums, in which people either owned, rented or squatted their houses.[12] As of 2019, 4.39 million people lived in the capital Nairobi and around half lived in informal settlements, occupying just 1 per cent of the city's land. Many slums (for example Huruma, Kibera and Mathare) were clustered in a belt around 4 km from the Central Business District.[13] Research in 2020 using Geographic information system (GIS) technology suggested the population of Kibera was around 283,000, lower than mainstream media estimates;[13] the United Nations Human Settlements Programme (UN-HABITAT) had previously estimated there to be between 350,000 and 1 million inhabitants.[14] Mathare is a collection of squatted villages in the valley of the Mathare River, which were founded in the 1960s.[15]

GIS analysis was also used to plot occupations in the Chyulu Hills, where squatters who want to farm the land have come into conflict with conservationists, who want to preserve it. This dispute has resulted in violent evictions by the Kenya Wildlife Service.[16] In 2014, the government sent the military to the Embobut forest in order to evict over 15,000 Sengwer people from their own land. International groups such as Survival International and Forest Peoples Programme condemned the evictions, saying they were illegal and further that the government should not call the Sengwer squatters.[17] In 2009, the government began to evict squatters from the Mau forest, citing concerns over the energy, tea and tourism industries. Conservationists had urged action to protect the whole Rift valley ecosystem from deforestation and water scarcity.[18]

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 edit

References edit

  1. ^ Dilley, Marjorie Ruth (1966). British Policy in Kenya Colony. Psychology Press. p. 17. ISBN 978-0-7146-1655-1.
  2. ^ Page, Melvin Eugene; Sonnenburg, Penny M. (2003). Colonialism: An International, Social, Cultural, and Political Encyclopedia. ABC-CLIO. p. 313. ISBN 978-1-57607-335-3. from the original on 2023-02-02. Retrieved 2023-02-02.
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Kanogo, Tabitha M. (1987). Squatters and the Roots of Mau Mau, 1905-63. London: J. Currey. ISBN 978-1-78204-979-1.
  4. ^ a b Lele, Uma (1976). "On Developing Rural Settlements". Finance & Development. 13 (1). International Monetary Fund: 8–11.
  5. ^ a b Morgan, W. T. W. (1963). "The 'White Highlands' of Kenya". The Geographical Journal. 129 (2): 140–155. Bibcode:1963GeogJ.129..140M. doi:10.2307/1792632. JSTOR 1792632.
  6. ^ Alao, Abiodun (2006). Mau-Mau Warrior. Oxford: Osprey. ISBN 978-1-84603-024-6.
  7. ^ Ormsby-Gore, W.; Church, A. G.; Linfield, F. C. (1925). Report of the East Africa Commission (PDF). London: His Majesty's Stationery Office. (PDF) from the original on 2022-11-25. Retrieved 2022-04-14.
  8. ^ Youé, Christopher (2002). "Black Squatters on White Farms: Segregation and Agrarian Change in Kenya, South Africa, and Rhodesia, 1902–1963". The International History Review. 24 (3): 558–602. doi:10.1080/07075332.2002.9640974. S2CID 153852304.
  9. ^ Feichtinger, Moritz (January 2017). "'A Great Reformatory': Social Planning and Strategic Resettlement in Late Colonial Kenya and Algeria, 1952–63". Journal of Contemporary History. 52 (1): 45–72. doi:10.1177/0022009415616867. S2CID 159532876.
  10. ^ 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. (PDF) from the original on 2022-03-08. Retrieved 2022-04-14.
  11. ^ Moskowitz, Kara (2015). "'Are you planting trees or are you planting people?' Squatter resistance and international development in the making of a Kenyan postcolonial political order (c. 1963-78)". The Journal of African History. 56 (1): 99–118. doi:10.1017/S0021853714000668. ISSN 0021-8537. JSTOR 43305241. S2CID 154963143. from the original on 2022-04-22. Retrieved 2022-04-22.
  12. ^ Gulyani, Sumila; Bassett, Ellen M.; Talukdar, Debabrata (2012). "Living Conditions, Rents, and Their Determinants in the Slums of Nairobi and Dakar". Land Economics. 88 (2): 251–274. doi:10.3368/le.88.2.251. ISSN 0023-7639. JSTOR 23272581. S2CID 154634824. from the original on 2022-04-08. Retrieved 2022-04-14.
  13. ^ a b Ren, Hang; Guo, Wei; Zhang, Zhenke; Kisovi, Leonard Musyoka; Das, Priyanko (18 September 2020). "Population Density and Spatial Patterns of Informal Settlements in Nairobi, Kenya". Sustainability. 12 (18): 7717. doi:10.3390/su12187717.
  14. ^ "Participating countries". UN-HABITAT. from the original on 1 December 2021. Retrieved 12 February 2021.
  15. ^ Ross, Marc Howard (October 1973). "Community Formation in an Urban Squatter Settlement". Comparative Political Studies. 6 (3): 296–328. doi:10.1177/001041407300600302. S2CID 154220992.
  16. ^ Muriuki, Grace; Seabrook, Leonie; McAlpine, Clive; Jacobson, Chris; Price, Bronwyn; Baxter, Greg (February 2011). "Land cover change under unplanned human settlements: A study of the Chyulu Hills squatters, Kenya". Landscape and Urban Planning. 99 (2): 154–165. doi:10.1016/j.landurbplan.2010.10.002.
  17. ^ Tickell, Oliver (9 January 2014). "Kenya - Forest people facing violent eviction". The Ecologist. from the original on 22 April 2022. Retrieved 22 April 2022.
  18. ^ Rice, Xan (18 November 2009). "Kenya evicts thousands of forest squatters in attempt to save Rift valley". The Guardian. from the original on 22 April 2022. Retrieved 22 April 2022.
  19. ^ "Squatters in Kenya's Murang'a county speak of 'colonisation' on ancestral lands". RFI. 26 December 2020. from the original on 14 April 2022. Retrieved 8 April 2022.
  20. ^ Wangui, Joseph (20 October 2020). "Del Monte fight for prime Thika land to proceed in court". Nation. from the original on 6 October 2022. Retrieved 8 April 2022.
  21. ^ a b Wambui, Mary (4 July 2022). "Uhuru Kenyatta directs CSs to issue title deeds to owners by July 20". Nation. from the original on 25 November 2022. Retrieved 19 November 2022.
  22. ^ Lwanga, Charles (12 October 2020). "Uhuru plan to settle 1,300 squatters finally rolls out". Nation. from the original on 14 April 2022. Retrieved 14 April 2022.

Further reading edit

  • Amis, Philip (January 1984). "Squatters or tenants: the commercialization of unauthorized housing in Nairobi". World Development. 12 (1): 87–96. doi:10.1016/0305-750X(84)90037-8.
  • Kenya - The Unseen Majority: Nairobi's Two Million Slum Dwellers. UK: Amnesty International. 2009.

January 01, 1970
squatting, kenya, during, colonial, occupation, kenya, black, africans, working, farms, owned, white, settlers, were, called, squatters, british, 1945, there, were, over, such, squatters, highlands, more, than, half, were, kikuyu, rebellion, began, amongst, th. During the colonial occupation of Kenya Black Africans working on farms owned by white settlers were called squatters by the British As of 1945 there were over 200 000 such squatters in the Highlands and more than half were Kikuyu The Mau Mau rebellion began amongst these squatters in the late 1940s and after independence in the early 1960s peasants started squatting land in rural areas without the permission of the owner Map of slums in Nairobi including Kibera and Mathare 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 National Land Commission In 2007 55 per cent of Kenya s urban population lived in slums in which people either owned rented or squatted their houses and as of 2019 4 39 million people lived in the capital Nairobi with around half living in informal settlements such as Huruma Kibera and Mathare Contents 1 History 2 21st century 3 See also 4 References 5 Further readingHistory edit nbsp A 1909 oil painting of a Kikuyu woman by Akseli Gallen Kallela 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 edit nbsp A 2015 photograph of shacks in Kibera Nairobi The United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs UN DESA estimated in 2007 that 55 per cent of Kenya s urban population lived in slums in which people either owned rented or squatted their houses 12 As of 2019 4 39 million people lived in the capital Nairobi and around half lived in informal settlements occupying just 1 per cent of the city s land Many slums for example Huruma Kibera and Mathare were clustered in a belt around 4 km from the Central Business District 13 Research in 2020 using Geographic information system GIS technology suggested the population of Kibera was around 283 000 lower than mainstream media estimates 13 the United Nations Human Settlements Programme UN HABITAT had previously estimated there to be between 350 000 and 1 million inhabitants 14 Mathare is a collection of squatted villages in the valley of the Mathare River which were founded in the 1960s 15 GIS analysis was also used to plot occupations in the Chyulu Hills where squatters who want to farm the land have come into conflict with conservationists who want to preserve it This dispute has resulted in violent evictions by the Kenya Wildlife Service 16 In 2014 the government sent the military to the Embobut forest in order to evict over 15 000 Sengwer people from their own land International groups such as Survival International and Forest Peoples Programme condemned the evictions saying they were illegal and further that the government should not call the Sengwer squatters 17 In 2009 the government began to evict squatters from the Mau forest citing concerns over the energy tea and tourism industries Conservationists had urged action to protect the whole Rift valley ecosystem from deforestation and water scarcity 18 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 edit nbsp Kenya portal List of slums in KenyaReferences edit Dilley Marjorie Ruth 1966 British Policy in Kenya Colony Psychology Press p 17 ISBN 978 0 7146 1655 1 Page Melvin Eugene Sonnenburg Penny M 2003 Colonialism An International Social Cultural and Political Encyclopedia ABC CLIO p 313 ISBN 978 1 57607 335 3 Archived from the original on 2023 02 02 Retrieved 2023 02 02 a b c d e f g h i j k l Kanogo Tabitha M 1987 Squatters and the Roots of Mau Mau 1905 63 London J Currey ISBN 978 1 78204 979 1 a b Lele Uma 1976 On Developing Rural Settlements Finance amp Development 13 1 International Monetary Fund 8 11 a b Morgan W T W 1963 The White Highlands of Kenya The Geographical Journal 129 2 140 155 Bibcode 1963GeogJ 129 140M doi 10 2307 1792632 JSTOR 1792632 Alao Abiodun 2006 Mau Mau Warrior Oxford Osprey 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 Youe Christopher 2002 Black Squatters on White Farms Segregation and Agrarian Change in Kenya South Africa and Rhodesia 1902 1963 The International History Review 24 3 558 602 doi 10 1080 07075332 2002 9640974 S2CID 153852304 Feichtinger Moritz January 2017 A Great Reformatory Social Planning and Strategic Resettlement in Late Colonial Kenya and Algeria 1952 63 Journal of Contemporary History 52 1 45 72 doi 10 1177 0022009415616867 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 Moskowitz Kara 2015 Are you planting trees or are you planting people Squatter resistance and international development in the making of a Kenyan postcolonial political order c 1963 78 The Journal of African History 56 1 99 118 doi 10 1017 S0021853714000668 ISSN 0021 8537 JSTOR 43305241 S2CID 154963143 Archived from the original on 2022 04 22 Retrieved 2022 04 22 Gulyani Sumila Bassett Ellen M Talukdar Debabrata 2012 Living Conditions Rents and Their Determinants in the Slums of Nairobi and Dakar Land Economics 88 2 251 274 doi 10 3368 le 88 2 251 ISSN 0023 7639 JSTOR 23272581 S2CID 154634824 Archived from the original on 2022 04 08 Retrieved 2022 04 14 a b Ren Hang Guo Wei Zhang Zhenke Kisovi Leonard Musyoka Das Priyanko 18 September 2020 Population Density and Spatial Patterns of Informal Settlements in Nairobi Kenya Sustainability 12 18 7717 doi 10 3390 su12187717 Participating countries UN HABITAT Archived from the original on 1 December 2021 Retrieved 12 February 2021 Ross Marc Howard October 1973 Community Formation in an Urban Squatter Settlement Comparative Political Studies 6 3 296 328 doi 10 1177 001041407300600302 S2CID 154220992 Muriuki Grace Seabrook Leonie McAlpine Clive Jacobson Chris Price Bronwyn Baxter Greg February 2011 Land cover change under unplanned human settlements A study of the Chyulu Hills squatters Kenya Landscape and Urban Planning 99 2 154 165 doi 10 1016 j landurbplan 2010 10 002 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 editAmis Philip January 1984 Squatters or tenants the commercialization of unauthorized housing in Nairobi World Development 12 1 87 96 doi 10 1016 0305 750X 84 90037 8 Kenya The Unseen Majority Nairobi s Two Million Slum Dwellers UK Amnesty International 2009 Retrieved from https en 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