Squatting in Kenya

During the colonial occupation of Kenya, Black Africans working on farms owned by white settlers were called "squatters" by the British.

[6]: 6  Kenyan labourers who worked for white settlers were permitted a small amount of land where they lived and grew food.

[7]: 172–173  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.

[8] 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.

Whilst World War II slowed its implementation, in the late 1940s its effects were felt and labourers were forced to organise in groups such as the Kikuyu Highlands Squatters Association.

[10] After independence in the early 1960s, peasants started squatting land in rural areas in the centre of the country and on the coast.

[5] From 1963 until 1978, squatters successfully resisted a World Bank funded forestation project in Turbo by settling lands and ripping out trees.

[11] 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.

[17] In 2009, the government began to evict squatters from the Mau forest, citing concerns over the energy, tea and tourism industries.