While Kenyan women fight to have 50 seats reserved for them in Parliament, Ms Mutheu Meierhofer-Mangeli, a Kenyan living in Switzerland, has contested twice in the far away country, writes Susan Anyangu.

As women in Kenya fight for more representation, miles away in Switzerland, another woman is fighting a similar battle, albeit on another scale.

Ms Mutheu Meierhofer-Mangeli, 53, a Kenyan living abroad has taken the battle of equal representation to Europe where she has lived for the last 26 years.

“It is very difficult for blacks especially women living in a predominately white community.

“When I first arrived in Europe, the society was very closed and blacks were considered outsiders.

“I kept thinking it was unfair to feel unwanted. After all, we say the world is a global village and I think this means we should learn to live with each other. I wanted to make a difference for the black woman.”

“I do not see non-white faces in parliament but because I have lived in that country for long I have to make a difference. It is time they understood black people differently especially women,” she says.

She says laws in some countries in Europe support a system that essentially abuses foreigners. For instance, black women living in Switzerland cannot get a visa unless they are married to a Swiss or are ‘dancers.’

“The Western world has done a perfect job of marketing their countries to lure Africans. Africans are lured to Europe and America under the guise that life abroad is a bed of roses. But when people get here they find things are not as rosy. That is where we come in and provide relevant information and tell people what to expect,” she says.

….Go Read Full Article

Technorati Tags: Susan Anyangu | Africans in Switzerland | African Woman | Mutheu Meierhofer-Mangeli | Blacks in Europe | Race Relations in Europe | Racism and Bigotry in Europe | Switzerland | Kenya

Popularity: 51% [?]

Other Posts

• May 24, 2008 -- Obama: Rush Limbaugh and Lou Dobbs are hate mongers (0)
• June 3, 2008 -- End Game - Clinton ‘May’ Endorse Obama on Tuesday (0)
• March 21, 2008 -- Fox News publishes false “Black Panther” Endorsement (0)
• August 5, 2007 -- Rules of War (0)
• May 28, 2008 -- Double standards on nuclear weapons could be disastrous (0)
• July 16, 2007 -- Spotlight on Franco - One of Africa’s Best, Ever! (0)
• July 6, 2007 -- Racist ‘Jim Crow’ Prince William County, Virginia - Targets Immigrants (0)
• December 25, 2007 -- Pages (0)
• May 26, 2008 -- Hillary Clinton Is A Pinata We Love To Clobber (0)
• August 28, 2007 -- Spotlight on Kenya’s Janeth Jepkosgei - The New World 800m Champion (1)
• May 9, 2008 -- Desperate Hillary ‘Clinging’ To The ‘Bigot Vote’ (0)
• October 20, 2007 -- Bring Our Troops Home From Iraq AND Afghanistan (1)
• February 15, 2008 -- John McCain vs The Belligerent Anti-Immigrant Far Right ‘Terrorists’ (0)
• October 1, 2007 -- John McCain Born Again As An Evangelical Baptist (0)
• September 1, 2008 -- Obama-Biden Ad for Scranton & Northeastern Pennsylvania (0)
• September 3, 2007 -- I’m Not Knockin’ football (0)
• August 19, 2008 -- Obama Should Stop Appeasing Hillary Clinton Loyalists (0)
• March 23, 2008 -- Neo Nazi/White Supremacist Hal Turner Confirms Friendship And Kinship With Fox News’s Sean Hannity (1)
• July 11, 2007 -- Democratic Presidential Debate To Be Devoted To Gay Issues (0)
• March 1, 2008 -- Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton And A Ringing Red Phone (1)
• July 28, 2008 -- New anti-immigrant hysteria - Xenophobes now blame immigrants for environmental degradation (0)
• June 17, 2007 -- Why families matter on immigration (0)
• March 29, 2008 -- Patrick Leahy To Hillary Clinton: Drop Out Of Race Now (0)
• May 8, 2008 -- The Clintons and Racism: What goes around comes around! (0)
• March 17, 2008 -- Obama’s Minister Committed ‘Treason’ But When My Father Said the Same Thing He Was a Republican Hero (0)
• March 8, 2008 -- McCain and the F Word (0)
• October 17, 2007 -- The G From LA You Never Heard Of (0)
• May 24, 2008 -- The Roots of Anti-Americanism (0)
• September 10, 2008 -- Meghan McCain: ‘My Dad Dated A Stripper’ (0)
• May 13, 2008 -- Focus on Seun Kuti | Fela Kuti and Egypt 80 (0)