Unmasking Financial Control as the Hidden Barrier to Girls’ Education in Kenya
Economic abuse is an insidious form of gender-based violence that thrives on resource access and control, limiting a woman’s access to family resources and sabotaging her opportunities for employment. In Kenya, rural women bear the burden of domestic and unpaid care work, which is deeply intertwined with the economic abuse women suffer. Many women spend countless hours on the tea, coffee, sisal farms, maize plantations, weeding, harvesting, and taking crops to market, or performing essential household duties like fetching water and firewood, cooking, and childcare. Yet, in too many households, a husband or male relative holds complete decision-making control over the income generated from the farm produce or the woman’s casual labour. Their lived reality is one where the fruits of their labour are instantly alienated, leaving them perpetually dependent and unable to save, invest, take credit, or make autonomous decisions. This control often manifests as wage theft, denial of funds for household necessities, or being forced to ask for every shilling, which is inherently degrading and disempowering. This vulnerability is is a symptom of Kenya’s broader inequality crisis.
The 2023 Oxfam report, Kenya’s Inequality Crisis, highlights that the concentration of wealth in the hands of a few is directly linked to the exploitation of women’s labour. Oxfam’s analysis consistently underscores that unpaid care work, a task disproportionately performed by women, is a key pillar supporting the formal economy, yet it remains completely unrecognised and unremunerated. This societal undervaluation of women’s work reinforces the patriarchal norms that allow men to claim ownership over communal or joint earnings while contributing minimal, if any, labour to the care economy. The report and similar studies show that this structural inequality creates a cycle where women are economically oppressed: they are time-poor due to their domestic duties and asset-poor due to male control over income and property. This lack of economic agency makes them highly susceptible to violence, as they have no means to leave an abusive relationship or seek justice without risking absolute destitution. The struggle for daily survival against this backdrop of financial control becomes the defining hardship for countless Kenyan women.
The consequences of this pervasive economic abuse on the next generation, particularly girls’ education, are devastating and far-reaching. When a mother is financially powerless and struggling with poverty, the family’s ability to pay school fees is often compromised, making education a high-cost commodity. In situations of financial strain, exacerbated by the woman’s lack of control over income, daughters are often the first to be withdrawn from school. They may be forced into early marriage as families seek to reduce the household burden, or, tragically, they may be pushed towards transactional sex with older men (often known as ‘sugar daddies’) to access basic needs like sanitary pads, food, or school supplies. This exposure to sexual exploitation dramatically increases the risk of rape, teenage pregnancy, and subsequent school dropout. The lack of education then locks the young women into the same cycle of economic dependency as their mothers, perpetuating intergenerational poverty and violence. The subtle suggestion to a young girl that education is not her future, but rather marriage and domestic work is, is a direct result of seeing her own mother’s economic powerlessness.
To break this cycle, a multi-faceted approach is urgently required. First, Kenya must officially recognise and measure the value of unpaid care work in national economic data and invest heavily in public services like water, childcare, and energy infrastructure to reduce the time burden on women. Second, implement and enforce laws that guarantee women equal rights to asset ownership and control over joint earnings from farms or businesses. Third, address the educational crisis by subsidising school fees for girls from impoverished backgrounds and implementing robust, school-based programs that provide age-appropriate Sexuality Education, teach financial literacy, and establish safe, confidential reporting mechanisms for violence and abuse. Lastly, engage men and boys as partners to challenge the harmful gender norms that sanction economic control and advocate for the shared responsibility of domestic and care work. Only by ensuring women’s economic security and girls’ continuous, safe access to education can this crisis of economic abuse truly be solved.
