Kibera

Kibera (Kinubi: Forest or Jungle) is a division and neighbourhood of Nairobi, Kenya, 6.6 kilometres (4.1 mi) from the city centre. Kibera is the largest slum in Nairobi, and the largest urban slum in Africa. The 2009 Kenya Population and Housing Census reports Kibera's population as 170,070, contrary to previous estimates of one or two million people. Other sources suggest the total Kibera population may be 500,000 to well over 1,000,000 depending on which slums are included in defining Kibera.

In 2009, a survey conducted by the French Institute for Research in Africa found that the average Kibera slum resident lives in extreme poverty, earning less than US$2 per day. Unemployment rates are high. 12% of the population are living with HIV. Cases of assault and rape are common. There are few schools, and most people cannot afford education for their children. Clean water is scarce. Diseases caused by poor hygiene are prevalent...Read more

Kibera (Kinubi: Forest or Jungle) is a division and neighbourhood of Nairobi, Kenya, 6.6 kilometres (4.1 mi) from the city centre. Kibera is the largest slum in Nairobi, and the largest urban slum in Africa. The 2009 Kenya Population and Housing Census reports Kibera's population as 170,070, contrary to previous estimates of one or two million people. Other sources suggest the total Kibera population may be 500,000 to well over 1,000,000 depending on which slums are included in defining Kibera.

In 2009, a survey conducted by the French Institute for Research in Africa found that the average Kibera slum resident lives in extreme poverty, earning less than US$2 per day. Unemployment rates are high. 12% of the population are living with HIV. Cases of assault and rape are common. There are few schools, and most people cannot afford education for their children. Clean water is scarce. Diseases caused by poor hygiene are prevalent. A great majority living in the slum lack access to basic services, including electricity, running water, and medical care.

The Government initiated a clearance programme to replace the slum with a residential district of high-rise apartments, and to relocate the residents to these new buildings upon completion.

The neighbourhood is divided into a number of villages, including Kianda, Soweto East, Gatwekera, Kisumu Ndogo, Lindi, Laini Saba, Silanga, Makina, Salama, Ayany, and Mashimoni.

 Kibera slum in Nairobi, Kenya, in 2005. It is the largest slum in Africa[1][2] and the third largest in the world.[3]Colonial era

The city of Nairobi, where Kibera is located, was founded in 1899 when the Uganda Railway line was built, thereby creating a need for its headquarters and British colonial offices.[4][5] The colonial administration intended to keep Nairobi as a home for Europeans and temporary migrant workers from Africa and Asia. The migrant workers were brought into Nairobi on short-term contracts, as indentured labour, to work in the service sector, as railway manual labour and to fill lower-level administrative posts in the colonial government.[6][7]

Between 1900 and 1940, the colonial government passed a number of laws – such as the 1922 Vagrancy Act – to segregate people, evict, arrest, expel and limit the movement of the natives and indentured workers.[7][8] Within Nairobi, Africans could live in segregated "native reserves" at the edge of the city.[9][10] Permits to live in Nairobi were necessary, and these permits separated living areas of non-Europeans by ethnic group. One such group were African soldiers who served the military interests of the British colonial army, and their assigned area developed into a slum, now known as Kibera.[11][12][13]

Kibera originated as a settlement in the forests at the outskirts of Nairobi, when Nubian soldiers returning from service with the King's African Rifles (KAR) were allocated plots of land there in return for their efforts in 1904. Kibera was situated on the KAR military exercise grounds in close proximity to the KAR headquarters along Thika Road.[14] The British colonial government allowed the settlement to grow informally. The Nubians had no claim on land in "Native Reserves" and over time, other tribes moved into the area to rent land from the Nubian landlords. With the increase in railway traffic, Nairobi's economy developed, and an increasing number of rural migrants moved to urban Nairobi in search of wage labour. Kibera and other slums developed throughout Nairobi.[8][15]

 Kibera slum was established in early 20th century, and has grown ever since on public lands, around water streams and railway tracks. Its current residents are people from all major ethnic groups of Kenya.[16]

Proposals were made in the late 1920s to demolish and relocate Kibera, as it was within the zone of European residential holdings; however, the residents objected to these proposals. The colonial government considered proposals to reorganise Kibera, and the Kenya Land Commission heard a number of cases which referred to the "Kibera problem".[17] By then, Kibera was not the only slum. A 1931 Colonial Report noted the segregated nature of housing in Nairobi and other Kenyan towns, with housing for Europeans reported as good, and widespread prevalence of slum property for Africans and other non-European migrants.[18]

Post-independence

After Kenya became independent in 1963, a number of forms of housing were made illegal by the government. The new ruling affected Kibera on the basis of land tenure, rendering it an unauthorised settlement. Despite this, people continued to live there, and by the early 1970s landlords were renting out their properties in Kibera to significantly greater numbers of tenants than were permitted by law.[19]

The tenants, who are highly impoverished, cannot afford to rent legal housing, finding the rates offered in Kibera to be comparatively affordable. The number of residents in Kibera has increased accordingly despite its unauthorised nature. By 1974, members of the Kikuyu tribe predominated the population of Kibera, and had gained control over administrative positions, which were kept through political patronage.[19]

A shift in Kenyan demographics has taken place since then, with the Luo and Luhya tribes from the West of Kenya being the primary sources of internal emigration. By 1995 Kibera had become a predominantly Luo slum and Mathare Valley nearby the predominantly Kikuyu slum area.[20] The coincident rise of multi party politics in Kenya has caused the Luo leader and MP for much of Kibera, the parliamentary seat of Langata, Raila Odinga to be known for his ability to bring out a formidable demonstration force instantly. Meanwhile, Mathare Valley has become a hotbed of gang warfare. Political tensions in the nation between the ethnic tribes escalated after the re-election of President Kibaki in 2007.

 The relative location of Kibera in Nairobi

The Nubian community has a Council of Elders who are also the Trustees of its Trust. This Trust now claims all of Kibera. It claims that the extent of their land is over 1,100 acres (4.5 km2). It claims that owing to State sanctioned allotments the land area is now reduced to 780 acres (3.2 km2). The Government does not accept their claims but its rehousing program envisions a land extent around 300 acres (1.2 km2) for the claimed Nubian settlement. Neither side has left any room for negotiation from this position.

Presently, Kibera's residents represent all the major Kenyan ethnic backgrounds, with some areas being specifically dominated by peoples of one ethno-linguistic group. Many new residents come from rural areas with chronic underdevelopment and overpopulation issues. The multi-ethnic nature of Kibera's population, combined with the tribalism that pervades Kenyan politics, has led to Kibera hosting a number of small ethnic conflicts throughout its century-long history. The Kenyan government owns all the land upon which Kibera stands, though it continues to not officially acknowledge the settlement; no basic services, schools, clinics, running water or lavatories are publicly provided, and the services that do exist are privately owned.[21]

^ "Facts and figures". Kibera UK. Retrieved 31 January 2013. ^ "BBC News – Improving sanitation in Kibera". BBC News. 29 September 2011. Retrieved 31 January 2013. ^ Cite error: The named reference imcworldwide was invoked but never defined (see the help page). ^ Gatabaki-Kamau, R., & Karirah-Gitau, S. (2004). Actors and interests: The development of an informal settlement in Nairobi, Kenya. In K. T. Hansen & M. Vaa (Eds.), Reconsidering informality: Perspectives from urban Africa. Uppsala: Nordic Africa Institute ^ Brian Ekdale, in A Companion to Media Authorship, (Editors: Jonathan Gray, Derek Johnson), ISBN 978-0-47067096-5, pages 158–180 ^ Furedi, F. (1973). The African crowd in Nairobi: Population movements and elite politics. Journal of African History, 14(2), 275–290 ^ a b Clayton, A. (1975). Government and labour in Kenya: 1895–1963. London: Cass, ISBN 978-0714630250 ^ a b Macharia, K. (1992). Slum clearance and the informal economy in Nairobi. The Journal of Modern African Studies, 30(2), 221–236) ^ The Nubis of Kibera: a social history of the Nubians and Kibera slums Johan Victor Adriaan de Smedt (1951), Leiden University, Netherlands; pages 62–85 ^ Roberts, J. I. (1936). Plague conditions in an urban area of Kenya (Nairobi township). The Journal of hygiene, 36(4), 467–484; Haynes, W. S. (1951). Tuberculosis in Kenya. British Medical Journal, 1(4697), 67 ^ Mitullah, W. V., & Kibwana, K. (1998). A tale of two cities: Policy, law and illegal settlements in Kenya. In E. Fernandes & A. Varley (Eds.), Illegal cities: Law and urban change in developing countries (pp. 191–212). New York: Zed Books Ltd ^ Aiyar, S. (2011). Anticolonial Homelands across the Indian Ocean: The Politics of the Indian Diaspora in Kenya, ca. 1930–1950. The American Historical Review, 116(4), 987–1013 ^ Boomtown slum – A day in the economic life of Africa's biggest shanty-town The Economist (22 December 2012) ^ de Smedt, Johan (2009). "Kill Me Quick, A History of Nubian Gin in Kibera". International Journal of African Historical Studies. 42 (2): 201–220. JSTOR 40282385. ^ Obudho, R. A., & Aduwo, G. O. (1989). Slum and squatter settlements in urban centres of Kenya: Towards a planning strategy. Journal of Housing and the Built Environment, 4(1), 17–30 ^ Cite error: The named reference ErulkarMatheka was invoked but never defined (see the help page). ^ Parsons, Timothy (1997), Kibra Is Our Blood: The Sudanese Military Legacy in Nairobi's Kibera Location Archived 29 October 2013 at the Wayback Machine, 1902–1968. The International Journal of African Historical Studies, 30(1), 87–122 ^ Colonial Reports, Annual No. 1606 Kenya Colony and Protectorate (1931), His Majesty's Stationery Office, London; page 17-20 ^ a b Lowder, Stella (1986). The geography of Third World cities. Totowa, N.J.: Barnes Noble Books. ISBN 0-389-20671-7. ^ Sarre, Johanna (2018), "The Nubians of Kibera 'Revisited': Detribalized Natives, Slum Dwellers, Middle Class?", Middle Classes in Africa, Cham: Springer International Publishing, pp. 135–156, doi:10.1007/978-3-319-62148-7_6, ISBN 978-3-319-62147-0 ^ "The strange allure of the slums". The Economist. 3 May 2007. Retrieved 6 May 2017.
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