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GUESTS: Lorna Laboso, with the ODM Party, just elected to Kenya’s Parliament, Stella Nyawira, 17 year old student who was raped in the post-election violence, Amie Williams, US based film maker who just returned from Kenya

The man named the winner of Kenya’s recent presidential elections, Mwai Kibaki, appointed half his cabinet yesterday, despite on-going controversy over who won. His actions enraged the opposition, sparking angry protests in areas where hundreds of people have already been killed in weeks of horrific post-election violence. The story of how Africa’s strongest economy has been hit by the violence has been widely reported in the international press. However, the angle that has gone almost completely un-reported has been the impact by and on women. For Kenya’s women, a majority of who backed opposition leader Raila Odinga of the Orange Democratic Movement, this election was a promise for change. Instead, when the incumbent Kibaki was declared the winner, young men, enraged by the results, and provoked by a whipping up of ethnic differences, went on a rampage killing, looting, and raping.

Today we’ll speak with one young woman, a 17 year old student named Stella Nyawira, who was raped the day Kibaki was declared president.

Another barely-reported aspect of the elections was the unprecedented number of women who ran for election to the Parliament and won seats. We’ll also speak today with one of those women, Lorna Laboso, with the ODM Party, who was elected.

Watch the rough cut of Amie Williams’ documentary about Kenya here: http://homepage.mac.com/amiewilliams

Amie Williams’ website is www.balmaidenfilms.com.