Essay by Eric Worrall
The traditional taboo against Women fishing alongside men has been broken thanks to global warming.
Kenyan women defy fishing taboos as climate change threatens Lake Victoria
In a lakeside village in Kisumu County, women were forbidden from fishing. Until Rhoda Ongoche Akech defied the social stigma.
By Daniel Kipchumba
Published On 20 Apr 202620 Apr 2026Kagwel, Kenya — Rhoda Ongoche Akech still remembers the whispers that followed her to the water’s edge in 2002. At 39 years old, the mother of seven was about to break one of Lake Victoria’s oldest taboos: a woman stepping into a fishing boat.
“People were alleging that when women go into the waters accompanied by men, they would engage in sexual intercourse,” the now 61-year-old said. But after they realised she was going there just to learn, and would not stop because of the stigma, “they kept quiet”.
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For decades, she had worked as a fishmonger in the village where fishing – only done by men – had sustained families for generations. But her income was dwindling. The cost of buying fish from male fishermen, combined with expenses for firewood, frying oil, and bus fare to markets, was becoming unsustainable.
Then in 2001, some women from neighbouring Homabay County arrived in Kagwel and did something unthinkable: they went fishing. Akech watched them and was inspired.
“I sought the help of two young men by then to assist me with fishing as I learned,” she said. Despite warnings from community members who insisted women had no place on the water, she persisted. Her family depended on it.
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Read more: https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2026/4/20/kenyan-women-defy-fishing-taboos-as-climate-change-threatens-lake-victoria
What can I say – all those warnings of global warming causing social disruption were true all along. Now African women in isolated tribal villages are being treated more like human beings thanks to global warming.
