PhD thesis Title Page Final _Richard Juma - Victoria University ...

stock, greatly depends on the availability of labour within the household
and is shared between men and women (see Appendix 5).
Table 2: Population Projections for Selected Age Groups, 1999-2008, in the
Turkana District.
Age 1999 2002 2004 2006 2008
Group M F M F M F M F M F
6-13 53,090 51,966 58,615 57,374 62,614 61,288 66,886 65,470 71,449 69,937
14-17 24,069 21,306 26,574 23,523 28,387 25,128 30,324 26,843 32,392 28,674
15-25 57,063 52,491 63,001 57,954 67,300 61,908 71,891 66,131 76,796 70,643
15-64 114,907 124,428 126,865 137,377 135,521 146,750 144,767 156,762 154,644 167,457
Source: Republic of Kenya (2002:18).
While men have full control concerning grazing, sale, and slaughter,
women control the products of livestock that are allocated to them. In
addition to performing their roles of fetching water and wood, caring for
the family, watering calves, carrying loads on their heads, gathering wild
fruit, child nurturing, milking livestock, constructing houses, skinning and
cutting meat, grinding millet, making fat and butter, making and repairing
clothes, bedding materials, and pots, and garden work, women also play
the crucial role of cultural reproduction in socializing children especially
girls, and participating in rituals and cultural ceremonies (Gulliver 1951).
However, in view of the numerous and taxing roles played by men and
women, the performance of these roles becomes even more challenging in a
drought situation when basic resources are scarce.
In pre-colonial Turkana society, young girls assisted by fetching water,
cooking food, making clothes, beadwork, baby sitting, and herding of goats
and sheep. Boys looked after young stock such as lambs and calves. They
also hunted for squirrels, rats, and birds. Warriors have been involved in
raids to acquire and protect pastures, water points, and homesteads from
external aggression (Gulliver 1951). A review of the gender roles is quite
important for this study because the adaptive strategies employed by
Turkana pastoralists to cope with the 2005-2006 drought and famine,
though based on social networks, were complemented by the gender
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