Squatting in Kenya

woman by Akseli Gallen-Kallela |alt=Head and shoulders portrait of African woman with ornamental headdress|thumb|right The Kenyan part of the East Africa Protectorate became the Kenya Colony, a British Crown colony, in 1920. White settlers took , including some of the most fertile areas. This land was named the "White Highlands" and native peoples were moved into reserves. For example, the Kikuyu people had most of their land confiscated and by 1948, 1.25 million Kikuyus were confined to and 30,000 settlers occupied . Kenyan labourers who worked for white settlers were permitted a small amount of land where they lived and grew food. By the 1920s, these labourers had become known as "squatters" by the British. A similar process occurred in Southern Rhodesia and South Africa; by World War I there were estimated to be 100,000 such squatters in Kenya. Some Kikuyu squatters moved to the Rift Valley because the land was more fertile than where they had previously lived and also settlers protected the men from conscription. The farmers grew pyrethrum and produced tea and coffee. The events led to a forced displacement of squatters from the Highlands to reserves and there was a period of armed struggle between 1952 and 1956. After independence in the early 1960s, peasants started squatting land in rural areas in the centre of the country and on the coast. The Land Development and Settlement Board, founded in 1961, declared that Africans could now buy and farm land in the "White Highlands". ==21st-century==

, Nairobi |thumb|right|alt=Small houses with corrugated metal roofs stand in ramshackle rows The United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UN DESA) estimated in 2007 that 55 per cent of Kenya's urban population lived in slums, in which people either owned, rented or squatted their houses. As of 2019, 4.39 million people lived in the capital Nairobi and around half lived in informal settlements, occupying just 1 per cent of the city's land. Many slums (for example Huruma, Kibera and Mathare) were clustered in a belt around 4 km from the Central Business District. Research in 2020 using Geographic information system (GIS) technology suggested the population of Kibera was around 283,000, lower than mainstream media estimates; Mathare is a collection of squatted villages in the valley of the Mathare River, which were founded in the 1960s. GIS analysis was also used to plot occupations in the Chyulu Hills, where squatters who want to farm the land have come into conflict with conservationists, who want to preserve it. This dispute has resulted in violent evictions by the Kenya Wildlife Service. In 2014, the government sent the military to the Embobut forest in order to evict over 15,000 Sengwer people from their own land. International groups such as Survival International and Forest Peoples Programme condemned the evictions, saying they were illegal and further that the government should not call the Sengwer squatters. In 2009, the government began to evict squatters from the Mau forest, citing concerns over the energy, tea and tourism industries. Conservationists had urged action to protect the whole Rift valley ecosystem from deforestation and water scarcity. Community groups including indigenous peoples and squatters have challenged agricultural companies such as Del Monte Kenya and Kakuzi Limited over land they regard as belonging to them following the foundation of the National Land Commission in 2012. The following year, the National Land Titling Programme was launched. In 2020, President Uhuru Kenyatta pledged to give two thirds of all Kenyans title to their land over the next two years. Land at Mikanjuni in Kilifi, Coast Province, was purchased by the state to give to 1,300 squatter families; Member of Parliament Gideon Mung'aro praised the initiative and commented that some squatters had been waiting 30 years to gain title to their land. By July 2022, the National Land Titling Programme intended to issue over one million titles in 42 counties. ==See also==