KENYA - Hawkers’ livelihoods under attack

By The Nairobi Hawkers Alliance (NAHA)

Hawking is a trade that is as old as Nairobi itself, going back to colonial times. People of diverse cultures, political and economic status engage in this form of business, yet neither past governments nor the present one have ever enacted laws to redress the situation of hawkers. Rather, the colonial masters enacted by-laws to suppress Africans’ freedom of trade. These same by-laws still affect the people to this very day.

Hawking attracts a wide sector of the Kenyan population, especially in this era of retrenchments where there are few blue and white collar jobs. Thus many Kenyans, old and young, educated and uneducated, engage in small business as a means of earning a livelihood. It comes as a surprise to see our government that is on record claiming to eradicate poverty and ignorance, collaborating with local authorities and big business interests such as Central Business District associations, to suppress hawking activities.

In Nairobi, as in other parts of the country, hawking has become more like a battle zone than a means of earning a living. Hawkers, already poor, are getting poorer and their livelihoods are under attack. In the central business district, hawkers are in perpetual danger of being harassed and arrested by a range of law enforcement groups: either city council police known as the `askaris’, administration or regular police. They face possible imprisonment and the confiscation of their goods. All too often, trumped up criminal charges such as theft, assault, etc are brought against hawkers as a means of intimidation.

Even though licences are issued to operate a business within the central business district, they are not respected. The licence remains the property of the city council and there is no guarantee of safety. Licensed hawkers may still be chased away without notice and structures and goods worth millions of shillings are destroyed or stolen by the askaris and those in authority.

We are worried that although our government is planning ways to alleviate poverty, it does not consider improving the economic situation of hawkers, even though this is one of the most obvious solutions. The city’s planners and councillors have not and do not want to allocate trading and market sites for the growing hawker population. All open spaces are taken up by big business - a case of the big fish swallowing smaller ones, forgetting that they (the smaller fish), are the majority.

The Nairobi Hawkers Alliance (NAHA) has held workshops with representatives from the Ministry of Planning, local authorities, university researchers, NGOs and hawkers’ organisations and groups. The recommendations that were approved could make a great difference to the informal sector. To our dismay, not one of them has been implemented yet.