Women from Kianganga village in Gatundu North in Kiambu county are up in arms with local authorities for failing to contain the high uptake of illicit brews in the area which have made local men unproductive.
Furious that the re-emergence of illicit brews in the remote area rendered most men into zombies, concerned women expressed their dissatisfaction with the sluggish nature of law enforcers in curbing the menace.
Led by Irene Wanyoike, the irate women decried that their husbands are no longer able to sire kids leave alone provide basic necessities for their family.
The women complained that their men have abandoned them and their homes and now live at concealed drinking dens where they drink from dawn to dusk.
Some said their men have been ordered by doctors to stop drinking alcohol but they still enjoy the outlawed drinks secretly while some others have died as a result.
The brews, they stated, are ferried in the area from Makwa and other villages using motorbikes and that it only takes a few minutes for a user to get intoxicated before they sleep in trenches and ditches.
“Men have abdicated their duties in bed because they don’t even have the strength to successfully manage one course. We have stopped delivering children and if you go to our nursery school around, it has no children,” Nyoike said.
The enraged women further expressed concerns that their men have started selling properties to facilitate their drinking sprees, a situation that could result in a domestic crisis if the matter is not addressed with urgency.
Speaking at the village, Mary Wanjiku Kahura, regretted that failure of men to provide for and educate their families has seen women handle all the manly duties including undertaking casual farm jobs to sustain their children.
“Whenever they come home, they demand to be served a huge piece of Ugali but they don’t participate in buying cooking flour which is currently very expensive. Women are forced to go an extra mile by doing everything possible to put food on the table and any time we fail to feed them on demand, a confrontation usually arises which is truly troubling us,” Kahura regretted.
Women blame police in Kiambu
The women, in their large numbers, urged top-level government officials to intervene claiming local authorities have failed to contain the menace that is on the verge of wiping out a community.
Efforts to reach police in Gatundu North over the crisis were futile.
Makwa village which has been pointed out as the source of the brews was once a vibrant town whose economic growth has been largely affected by the outlawed substances.
In the town, the local shops are weather-beaten with their barred doors and windows left as shells of abandoned stalls.
With the exit of traders, criminals and illicit brew traders have taken over the empty structures.
In 2018, Interior Cabinet Secretary Fred Matiang’i launched a countrywide crackdown on illicit brews and drugs at Makwa, perhaps signalling how deep the menace had become in the town.
