I Speak For The Woman Poem by Mwihaki Kahiga

I speak for the woman,
The woman who wakes up every morning and retires every night yet she is on duty 24 hours.
The woman who is a wife, a mother, a sister and a grandmother,
I speak for the voiceless woman of kenya,
Whose privacy and respect has been thrown under the carpet, by idle, indecent and uneducated hooligans who think they can dictate what the Kenyan woman should wear.

There is a very thin line between decency and indecency,
In Kenya the line is drawn by where you stay, where you shop, whether you drive or use the matatus.
Its not really the length of your skirt or the tightness of your jegging.

My heart bleeds and shutters when hooligans strip and rape our women in public,
The women reps are silent,
Our first and second ladies are silent,
The NGO's are silent,
The media houses are reporting this through a sieve,
Its disappointing and disheartening, that a country so beautiful and free,
Can enslave its women, in a coiled ruler-ship of hooligans

I speak for the woman,
The mother, the wife, the coach, the counselor and the pillar of our society,
I speak in her defense and demand actions from the highest office,
Flags should fly at half-mast to mourn the death of our respect, the legislature should stop their day to day duties to address this madness, our police force should have the woman as a second agenda from security.
We have had enough.

I will stand on the tallest buildings and demand action,
no more hushed tones in corners and secrecy,
I am a woman in kenya and i wont sit and watch the respect of womanhood being fed to the dogs in daytime,
you are taking our voice by force but i refuse to be silenced