Ida Odinga: Asiyo was my mentor in the fight for women’s rights
By Aloys Michael, August 8, 2025In a heartfelt tribute, Ida Odinga has remembered the late Phoebe Asiyo as her mentor and a towering figure in Kenya’s fight for gender equality.
Speaking on Friday, August 8, 2025, during the burial ceremony at Karachuonyo, Homa Bay County, Ida recounted how fate and shared purpose brought the two women together in what would become a lifelong journey of advocacy and friendship.
“When I went round, there was one confidant of General Mogi called Luco Bog,” Ida recalled. “He told me, ‘That is Phoebe, a CEO.’ Then I said, ‘Where on earth would I find Phoebe?’ He gave me the number, and I called, and Phoebe came. And that was the first time I met Phoebe, and that was the beginning of my relationship with Phoebe. It was a great meeting.”
She said at the time, Phoebe Asiyo was already a towering figure in national and international women’s movements. Ida, then navigating both personal and political struggles, found in Phoebe not just a guide, but a deeply trusted adviser.
“At that time, Phoebe was doing many things, but I took Phoebe as my mentor. Anything that I was doing, I would consult with Mama Phoebe,” she said.
Ida said one of the most significant pieces of advice Phoebe gave her was to organise women politically and socially under one umbrella. This counsel would lead to the formation of one of Kenya’s most influential women’s groups.
“I was advised at that particular time that I should start a women’s organisation. Because, you know, that’s the time I’m sorry to say this, I was in many problems. I went to, I was a teacher. I asked the nun to help me sort out my problems, and the nun said, ‘That is political. I cannot, we cannot help you. I was advised by none other than Professor Nyong’o to start an organisation that represents women in Kenya from all spheres and all political parties,” Ida explained.
With Phoebe as her chief adviser, Ida founded the League of Kenya Women Voters, an organisation that would pave the way for women’s greater participation in politics. The League played a crucial role in preparing women candidates ahead of the 1992 general elections, a watershed moment in Kenya’s democratic journey.
“For the first time, the election that was carried out in 1992, many women, all those women, had passed through the League of Women Voters. And that’s how it opened the world,” she noted.
Gender rule
The two also worked closely in preparing Kenyan women for the landmark 1995 Beijing Conference, which introduced the one-third gender rule, a benchmark that still defines gender advocacy in Kenya today.
“Many people did not understand what it was all about. And still today, we, the women of Kenya, are still working towards the one-third gender rule. I think the only county that has reached that level is Homa Bay County, which has 50 per cent leadership in politics,” she said.
Beyond politics and advocacy, their relationship was personal. Ida recalled a touching moment when Phoebe asked her for help in mobilising women for her son Caesar’s traditional wedding in Kabarnet.
“Mama Phoebe asked me… her son Caesar wanted to marry and asked me to mobilise women so that we could go to Kabarnet to ask for the girl’s hand in marriage,” she recounted.
“I collected many women and we went there, and we ‘switched’ the people of Kabarnet. It also happened that I was born in Kabarnet, so it was easy to talk to my people.”