Umoja: No Men Allowed

The village of Umoja is located in the North of Kenya, and the Samburu tribeswomen have declared it a man-free zone. "We don't let them rule us again. We rule our village." Led by the robust Rebecca Lolosoli, these women are not averse to ejecting intruders by physical force. The men, who reside in a neighboring village, look on in bewilderment. by the Australian director Elizabeth Tadic (, 2003) alternates between quirky reportage and serious indictment. The reason for these women's decision to live this way in Umoja is no laughing matter: many of them claimed to have been raped by British servicemen from the nearby military base. Their husbands blamed them for this abuse and divorced them. Umoja is a product of the women's outrage and loneliness, but the utopian ideal that the village promised has turned out to be less easy to export than Lolosoli had hoped. Elsewhere, the women are as traditional as the menfolk. It is a huge challenge to eliminate female circumcision, women's lowly social status, and child labor.