“When refugee women are shut out of the digital world, their silence echoes in the real one”. 

Kenya is often celebrated as Africa’s tech hub, the land of mobile money, digital innovation, and creative youth. But behind this narrative lies a different reality in Kakuma and Dadaab, two of the largest refugee camps in the world. Here, countless refugee women and girls don’t have access to the internet, smartphones, or even basic digital tools. And when you’re disconnected, you’re not just missing out on social media, you’re cut off from school, health information, jobs, and even a voice in your own community. 

The 2022 SDG Gender Index placed Kenya among the lowest performers in East Africa when it comes to gender equality. Women hold just 22.6% of parliamentary seats, 23% of girls are married before 18, and abortion remains legal only in very limited cases (Equal Measures 2030). But those numbers, worrying as they are, don’t even capture the most marginalized: refugee women. They don’t show up in national statistics. They are invisible in the very data that drives policy. 

Take the refugee camps themselves. UNHCR data shows Kenya is home to around 650,000 refugees and asylum-seekers, more than half of whom are women and children (UNHCR Refugee Data Portal). And yet, when the government tracks internet penetration, refugee-hosting areas barely register. 

On YouTube, you can hear it in the voices of young women themselves. In Kakuma, one teenage girl explained that without access to internet or smartphones, schooling becomes impossible. Many of her peers, she said, were pushed into early marriage because their options simply ran out (Refugee Girls Speak – UNHCR YouTube). 

That’s why this project, “Disconnected and Dismissed” exists. Through a short video documentary, simple infographics, and short audio snippets, I want to connect these silences with the data we do have, and highlight the gaps we cannot ignore. Because if Kenya is truly to achieve SDG 5 on gender equality, refugee women cannot remain offline, uncounted, and unheard. 

Digital inclusion isn’t a luxury. It’s not charity. It’s justice. 

This story was developed by Agnes Angule as part of the 2025 Storytelling with Gender Data Fellowship, a six-month programme by Equal Measures 2030 supporting young advocates to transform gender data into compelling stories for change. Learn more about this fellowship here: https://equalmeasures2030.org/blogs/introducing-our-2025-storytelling-with-gender-data-fellows/