Parliament’s culture of abuse: What Orwoba’s sexual harassment claims reveal
Ex-nominated Senator Gloria Orwoba. She recently claimed that sexual harassment and extortion of female members of Parliament is prevalent.
What you need to know:
- Allegations by ex-Senator Orwoba expose deep-rooted sextortion, normalised by silence, complicity, and impunity.
- Sexual harassment in Parliament reflects global patterns, silences victims, and deters women from political leadership and participation.
Ex-nominated Senator Gloria Orwoba was recently slapped with a hefty penalty payable to a senior official of Parliament for alleged defamation arising from claims that he sexually harassed her.
She followed up with a “revelation” that sexual harassment and extortion of female members of Parliament is prevalent, citing as an example that a particular senator is always on foreign trips even in portfolios she had no expertise in. This insinuated that the trips were rewards for granting sexual favours to officers allocating the travel opportunities.
These allegations raise important issues. First, they suggest that sexual harassment in Parliament is normalised, thus is some kind of culture that is silently accepted and tolerated. This quid pro quo sextortion has been associated with the education sector in the form of sex for grades.
There is also the infamous sex for fish phenomenon where women must sexually indulge with fishermen to secure supply. Essentially, sextortion is an indicator of power where a person in a position of privilege exploits the vulnerability of those who require resources or services under his control.
Second is that women are complicit in sustaining the practice, by exploiting their sexual appeal to outcompete less endowed colleagues or those resistant to the advances. This indicates entrenchment of the vice and its elevation to some kind of syndrome, where victims do not see anything wrong with abuse and actually support it and its perpetrators.
Credence is given to this by reports of a female member of Parliament sycophantically enjoying and reinforcing suggestive remarks by a political factotum about her body, in the process objectifying and demeaning herself and others in her category.
Collaborating in granting sexual favours in return for goods and services perpetuate the impression of inferiority, giving fodder for detractors to generalise about women and amplify misogynistic ideas about innate incapacity to compete.
Yet, sexual exploitation and sexism in parliament are not unique to Kenya but are prevalent globally. A 2021 study by the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) in collaboration with the African Parliamentary Union established that 67 per cent of women parliamentarians had been subjected to sexist behaviour or comments, while 40 per cent had been sexually harassed.
Mainly perpetrated by male colleagues from rival (49 per cent) or same (41 per cent) political parties, this behaviour primarily targeted women living with disabilities, and those under 40, are unmarried and/or hail from minority groups.
The abuse did not spare those known to champion women’s rights, showing perpetrators’ subtle contempt for and trivialisation of their activism. The report noted that 45 per cent of female parliamentary staff had equally been harassed.
Most worrying was the finding that most parliaments did not have a mechanism for voicing concerns. In most cases (83 per cent for sexual harassment, 78 per cent for sexist behaviour and 40 per cent for physical violence), the offensive incidents occurred in the precincts of parliament, depicting it as an unsafe space for women.
Sexism in parliament creates a toxic environment, detracts women from their primary duties there, creates over-sensitivity and puts them on perpetual defence. Remarking on this issue in the wake of the 2021 report, IPU President Duarte Pacheco observed that the vice “deters young women from entering politics,” hence negating democracy and gender equality.
A 2025 study on the Asia-Pacific legislatures reveals that 60 per cent of women parliamentarians experienced sexual harassment, sexism and violence. More than 50 per cent of the cases were perpetrated in parliamentary premises and by male colleagues. The profile of targeted women is a replica of that in the 2021 study on Africa.
The 2021 report proposes measures to eradicate the vice. These include putting in place internal parliamentary policies to combat sexism; establishing confidential spaces where victims can get advice; creating independent, secure and fair mechanisms for receiving and processing complaints; and training all people in parliamentary spaces in identifying and eliminating gender-based discrimination and violence.
Four countries are cited for proactivity on this issue. One is Tunisia, which recognises political violence as a form of abuse against women in a law passed in 2017. Two is Uganda, whose 2019 Human Resource Policy Manual outlines and exemplifies what constitutes sexual harassment. Three is Sierra Leone, which has a gender policy for public servants. Four is South Africa, which has a parliamentary sexual harassment policy. Kenya is not mentioned.
But it has the Employment Act and Sexual Offences Act, which have provisions on this matter. Perhaps aggrieved women parliamentarians have not sought relief from these laws for fear of undue public attention, embarrassment and tedium in proving the cases. One thing is clear though. Continued silence means acceptance of the vice. Orwoba’s statements must, therefore, not be trivialised but be seen as an invitation to investigate, confront and decisively tackle the monster.
The writer is a lecturer in Gender and Development Studies at South Eastern Kenya ([email protected]).
