It was a fringe item in the news out of Eldoret that I caught on Citizen TV last week. The National Cereals and Produce Board (NCPB) had decreed that proof of family was a requirement for purchase of maize. Singles would have to obtain proof of marriage from their local chief. This was some policy makers’ bright idea of dealing with scarcity that has hit the national distribution of subsidised maize flour- unga. A few women who self-identified as single complained on TV of the discrimination, stating the obvious, hunger does not discriminate against gender or marital status.
An educated guess tells me that the majority of those who would bear the brunt of this discrimination would be low income earning women. The single man is a rare sight at an unga line. It is the height of humiliation to go sourcing for food only to be confronted by marital officialdom and turned away because you had no documentation as proof that one has mouths to feed.