How Kitui women now guard the beasts that ease their burden
Donkeys transport stover in Kitui County. Donkey owners in the region, especially women, have been up in arms over spates of theft.
What you need to know:
- A wave of theft and slaughtering of donkeys recently rocked Kitui and neighbouring counties.
- Stolen donkeys are either slaughtered under the cover of darkness or trucked to unknown destinations.
It has been six years since Annastacia Kimanthi lost her three donkeys to daring thieves who slaughtered them right outside her house.
A recent wave of theft and slaughtering of donkeys that rocked Kitui and neighbouring counties has rekindled the trauma she suffered after the 2018 incident. The beasts of burden had been her main source of livelihood.
The concern is replicated across the county, where donkeys are the only domestic animals associated with women.
Kitui is among the counties with the highest population of donkeys. According to the 2019 population census, Kitui has at least 150,000. This has made it attractive to traders who export donkey hides to China, where they are used as a raw material for medicine and assorted beauty products.
Donkey traders use proxies to buy the animals in open air markets. They then hire agents to escort them to faraway collection points. However, stolen donkeys are either slaughtered under the cover of darkness or loaded onto trucks and ferried to unknown destinations. Thieves have taken advantage of the demand, and are wreaking havoc across the region.
“We no longer allow donkeys to wander around the homestead at night,” Ms Kimanthi tells Nation.Africa in Ndiuni village, as she demonstrates how she tethers her donkey to a pole right outside her main house using a long rope that extends to the headboard of her bed.
“This way, it does not take long before I realise when someone is attempting to untie the donkey.”
The wanton slaughtering of donkeys has seen animal rights groups and authorities mount a crackdown on the trade. The last three months have seen at least 30 people charged in Kitui and Machakos courts in connection with the transportation and slaughtering of donkeys. Authorities in the two counties have in the past three months seized more than 150 donkey carcasses and rescued at least 200 donkeys from traders and their agents.
In one incident, a Mwingi court fined Paul Chege, Samson Kamau, Peterson Githaiga, Elvis Mburu, James Ng’ang’a, Tom Kamau, Samson Njogu, and John Njuguna Sh11,000 each after convicting them of transporting the animals illegally.
In a second incident, two men, who were caught after their vehicle broke down in Nuu township, escaped death narrowly after they were accosted by locals. Three days later, police manning a road block on the Thika-Garissa highway impounded a van ferrying carcasses of 24 donkey.
A month later, a Kitui court fined Michael Mbugua, Benson Maingi Kariuki, and Franco Mutemi Wambua Sh8,000 each after convicting them of transporting meat without a permit, transporting meat in an unlicensed container, and handling uninspected meat.
The arrests and subsequent prosecutions are linked to an army of local women who have come together to confront their agony: theft of donkeys, which are subsequently slaughtered in makeshift slaughterhouses.
Crackdown
Ms Kimanthi is among the latest recruits into the army of women who have taken it upon themselves to keep donkey thieves at bay.
“We do not wield weapons. We work closely with security agencies to crack down on donkey trade by keenly monitoring and reporting suspicious movement of donkeys through our regions.”
In between, they meet regularly for table-banking. Their biggest achievement so far remains pushing Mr Peter Munya, then Agriculture Cabinet Secretary, to close a donkey slaughterhouse set up at Kithyoko in Machakos County by a Chinese company. It was accused of fuelling theft. Incidents of wanton slaughtering of donkeys reduced significantly following the closure.
However, things changed for the worse two months ago when residents woke up to the carcasses of 12 donkeys in a thicket near a communal sand dam, to the chagrin of the authorities.
“We are in big trouble. Instead of looking the other way as donkey thieves terrorise villagers, men should come join us in the fight. I am facing a real danger of losing Baraka to thieves,” Ms Kimanthi says, referring to the donkey she was gifted by her neighbours following the August 2018 raid that exposed her family to poverty.
The killing of the three donkeys saw two of Ms Kimanthi’s children drop out of a nearby secondary school to which she would ferry sand and other building materials as a way of paying fees in kind. She fought tears as she recalled how the situation saw her become a grandmother barely a year afterwards.
The Catholic Church and pressure groups have come out strongly to condemn the wanton slaughtering of donkeys, saying it affects women disproportionately.
“Once a household loses a donkey to those slaughtering them, it is the women and children who become the donkeys; they travel long distances in search of water. Trade in donkeys should end,” says Temea Mwendwa, the chairperson of Wendo wa Aka, one of the community-based organisations championing the rights of donkeys.
According to Ambrose Musyimi, Ukambani is facing high levels of poverty following the wanton slaughtering of donkeys that help communities cope with drought through helping in the transportation of water and animal feed. Mr Musyimi is the manager of Mtunze Punda Daima, a programme by the Catholic Diocese of Kitui, which actively promotes the welfare of donkeys.
The diocese works closely with local authorities and residents to advocate the welfare of donkeys. “Slaughtering donkeys at a commercial scale reduces their population drastically because they are slow to reproduce. The upshot is that the ongoing trade in donkeys exposes many communities in dry areas to the vagaries of global warming,” Mr Musyimi tells Nation.Africa, echoing Livestock Development Principal Secretary Jonathan Mueke.
Although the government has not outlawed the slaughtering of donkeys outright, “one should only slaughter the donkeys he has bred. Otherwise, we shall soon run out of donkeys,” Mr Mueke told a forum in Nairobi late last year.
On top of the ambiguity in law regarding the slaughtering of donkeys, pressure groups also cite cooperation between traders and community as one of the big hurdles in the fight. A spot check by Nation.Africa has shown that the price of a donkey has increased to around Sh10,000 on average in most markets. A donkey hide fetches more.
In addition, pressure groups decry lenient laws and corruption perpetrated by those tasked to issue livestock transport permits. The Kitui government sees an end to the donkey menace in the cooperation of the affected communities.
At the height of the crisis, the county government suspended all livestock movement permits indefinitely.
“We have called on the communities to be on the lookout for suspicious movement of donkeys through their areas. We are on the lookout for members of the community who offer their land to donkey traders who make makeshift slaughterhouses,” Kitui Agriculture Executive Stephen Mbaya Kimwele said.
