By David McKenzie, CNN
September 29, 2010 -- Updated 1923 GMT (0323 HKT)Kibera, Kenya (CNN) --
Sixty-eight year old Naima Shaban can't access health care, open a bank account, or even get a death certificate in Kenya. Like thousands of Nubians living in Kenya, she is effectively stateless.
Shaban lost her national identity card 10 years ago. For most Kenyans it takes a few weeks to get a new one; she is still waiting. She has a faded copy that she has kept all this time.
"I don't know why they don't just give me my I.D.," Shaban told me, "I filled out the forms, I am angry."
She can't even improve her mud house. Most Nubians can't get land title to their plots. If they build a formal structure it will be torn down.
Nubians came to Kenya as an accident of history. The British Army began recruiting them out of modern day Sudan at the turn of the last century. They formed part of the King's African Rifles, a regiment raised from the British territories in Africa.
Nubians helped expand the empire and fought in both world wars. To reward veterans, the British government gave families land in a forest near Nairobi. They called it Kibr, now it is Kibera, Kenya's largest slum.
A recent photographic exhibition by Greg Constantine highlights their long history in Kenya.
Check out the online exhibition
Since Kenyan independence in 1964, Nubians have struggled to find a formal place in Kenyan society. Despite living in Kenya for three, sometimes four, generations, Nubian families often struggle to get recognized by the state as Kenyan citizens.
"Obtaining a passport or identity card as a Nubian," says Adam Hussein, a leading Nubian Advocate, "requires that you go through a different process than the rest of Kenyans."
Hussein should know. It took him ten years of struggle to get a passport. He was a member of a rugby team - he couldn't travel. He was a trained chemist - he couldn't get a job with the government.
Read Hussein's blog
According to the Open Society Foundations, there are some 15 million stateless globally. From Thailand's hill tribes to Dominicans of Haitian descent in the Caribbean, stateless people are not recognized by any country.
While some Nubians have become true Kenyans by virtue of luck or patience, in recent years the situation seems to be getting worse, not better.
A senior immigration official told me that the Kenyan government vets many Nubians, regardless of how long their families have been in the country. Immigration, home affairs, and even intelligence gets involved, I was told.
Nubians are even asked for their grandparents' birth certificates to get official I.D.
"Stringent measures aren't aimed at any particular community," the official said. "They have to prove they are Kenyan. Stringent measures need to be put in place to ensure that people are Kenyan."
Nubians do live in other countries in East Africa, but Kenya's Nubians are, in many ways, the first Africans settled in Nairobi. Still, many can't truly feel it is home.
Hussein said: "When a Nubian begins to say we have been here for four generations, this is almost a century plus we have been in this land. [And] the first question that comes from authority is 'are you a Kenyan'"?
View Video at source-
http://edition.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/africa/09/28/kenya.nubians/index.html
Saturday, October 2, 2010
Kenya's Nubians fight for rights
The Nubian community in Kenya traces its roots to the Nuba Mountains in central Sudan. In the 19th century, the British forcibly brought them to East Africa as part of their colonising army. But after fighting for Britain in the first and second world wars, the Nubians were demobilised without any compensation.
The British also left Kenya with no plan to settle the Nubians or send them back to Sudan. Today, Kenya looks upon the Nubians with suspicion because of their role in the British conquest of East Africa.
The government does not recognise them as one of the country's ethnic groups and will not give them Kenyan citizenship. There are more than 100,000 Nubians in Kenya. They have no voting rights and cannot purchase land, or serve in the army or police force.
As part of its coverage of stateless people around the world, Al Jazeera travels to the Kenyan slum of Kiberia to meet one man who says he has spent most of his life fighting for work and for the right of his own land.
This is his story in his own words.
My name is Youssouf Abdallah, I am 73 years old and I am a fifth-generation Nubian living in Kenya.
Our lives here in Kiberia are hopeless because there is no freedom, not like the freedom the Kenyans have.
There are more than 100,000 Nubians in Kenya, yet they have no voting rights
We are not entitled to own land and if we are ever evicted, there is no redress in court.
The problem we have is that the young Nubian generation does not have jobs. They ask for it in the army and police but they do not get it ... so there are many who are unemployed in Kiberia for simply being Nubians ... and we all know you need a job to survive.
We feel like Kenyan citizens but there is no escaping the discrimination against us. We are not even recognised and in the census we are classified as "others".
The government has a budget for other people. Indians and whites feature in it but not us. There is no budget for us.
For a group like us that moved away years ago, it really is difficult to be recognised under international law.
The Sudanese government says we are Kenyans and that we represent Kenya's internal problem.
"Our lives here in Kiberia are hopeless because there is no freedom, not like the freedom the Kenyans have"
When we came here, there was no Kenya, no Nairobi, we contributed to the creation of the state but in return we got nothing.
We just give thanks for being alive.
What we need is land, to know that you own it and that it is yours. Now we have to get a permit to even build a toilet. That is the biggest injustice we face. We want to build property but we are not allowed to.
We get identification cards (IDs) now but we are still marginalised. It does not get you anywhere. If an ID was a true symbol of being a Kenyan, then why are we not entitled to land rights as well?
We have no land and cannot vote. We have no representation and no voice. But we have to fight for our rights here. We will not give up. We will die here and we will be buried here. We are Kenya.
Source- http://english.aljazeera.net/news/africa/2007/08/200852517380140544.html
The British also left Kenya with no plan to settle the Nubians or send them back to Sudan. Today, Kenya looks upon the Nubians with suspicion because of their role in the British conquest of East Africa.
The government does not recognise them as one of the country's ethnic groups and will not give them Kenyan citizenship. There are more than 100,000 Nubians in Kenya. They have no voting rights and cannot purchase land, or serve in the army or police force.
As part of its coverage of stateless people around the world, Al Jazeera travels to the Kenyan slum of Kiberia to meet one man who says he has spent most of his life fighting for work and for the right of his own land.
This is his story in his own words.
My name is Youssouf Abdallah, I am 73 years old and I am a fifth-generation Nubian living in Kenya.
Our lives here in Kiberia are hopeless because there is no freedom, not like the freedom the Kenyans have.
There are more than 100,000 Nubians in Kenya, yet they have no voting rights
We are not entitled to own land and if we are ever evicted, there is no redress in court.
The problem we have is that the young Nubian generation does not have jobs. They ask for it in the army and police but they do not get it ... so there are many who are unemployed in Kiberia for simply being Nubians ... and we all know you need a job to survive.
We feel like Kenyan citizens but there is no escaping the discrimination against us. We are not even recognised and in the census we are classified as "others".
The government has a budget for other people. Indians and whites feature in it but not us. There is no budget for us.
For a group like us that moved away years ago, it really is difficult to be recognised under international law.
The Sudanese government says we are Kenyans and that we represent Kenya's internal problem.
"Our lives here in Kiberia are hopeless because there is no freedom, not like the freedom the Kenyans have"
When we came here, there was no Kenya, no Nairobi, we contributed to the creation of the state but in return we got nothing.
We just give thanks for being alive.
What we need is land, to know that you own it and that it is yours. Now we have to get a permit to even build a toilet. That is the biggest injustice we face. We want to build property but we are not allowed to.
We get identification cards (IDs) now but we are still marginalised. It does not get you anywhere. If an ID was a true symbol of being a Kenyan, then why are we not entitled to land rights as well?
We have no land and cannot vote. We have no representation and no voice. But we have to fight for our rights here. We will not give up. We will die here and we will be buried here. We are Kenya.
Source- http://english.aljazeera.net/news/africa/2007/08/200852517380140544.html
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