TRADE-KENYA: East Africans May Be Stripped of the Kikoi

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Joyce Mulama

NAIROBI, Mar 30 2007 (IPS) - Kenyan activists are fighting to retain cultural designs that have been developed in East Africa but are being patented by companies in rich countries. After losing the kiondo basket trademark to Japan, the popular kikoi fabric design is currently at risk of being patented by a British company.

Cooperation for Fair Trade in Africa (COFTA), a Nairobi-based body of nongovernmental organisations, is taking on the Kikoy Company UK which has applied for registration as the sole trademark owner of kikoi.

Kikoi is a colourful cotton fabric historically worn by men and women along the East African coast. It is also used for making bags, hats and household items including curtains, rugs and bed covers. It has also proved popular in western countries.

This is the second time that a distinctly East African design is being claimed by foreigners. Kenyans have already lost ownership of the design of the traditional hand-woven sisal basket known as the kiondo. Last year the name kiondo was patented in Japan and other Asian countries.

The basket was first made by Kikuyu and Kamba women in Kenya’s central and eastern regions.

On 29 August 2006, the Kikoy Company UK filed an application with the UK patent office to register kikoi as its trademark. If it is granted, the firm will enjoy a monopoly over the marketing of kikoi products, meaning that it will be the entity that decides on the production, sale and export of kikoi items.

The European Union (EU) is the largest buyer of kikoi products. They are exported to Germany, UK, Italy, France, Spain and the Netherlands, according to COFTA which is campaigning for the elimination of poverty through fair trade. Trade in apparel for the lucrative EU market has been expanding over the past eight years.

Granting the trademark to the UK firm would mean that Kenyans have to request permission from the UK firm to market kikoi items despite it being a traditional cloth in Kenya and the rest of the region.

This will result in losses in income and jobs given that hundreds of people in the region, particularly Kenya, sell kikoi items to earn a living. The arts and crafts sector plays a significant role in the tourism industry, Kenya’s second highest foreign exchange earner after agriculture, and the informal sector contributes around 18 percent of the country’s gross domestic product.

The application by the UK firm has been fiercely criticised by COFTA. The organisation argues that even though the word is spelt differently, the pronunciation is the same. According to COFTA, kikoi is a common name that cannot be the property of one entity.

Hopes are high that the hearing on the matter, expected in July 2007, will see Kenya retain the kikoi as part of its traditional heritage. ”We have not lost the kikoi. We have a strong case and good support. We can prove that kikoi is synonymous with Kenya and the East African coast,” Joan Karanja, COFTA’s programme coordinator, told IPS.

”One entity cannot own the culture of a certain group of people. If the UK application goes through, it will communicate that anyone can possess another’s culture. It will mean that everything we have is at risk, including our cooking pots,” she said.

Activists of the Maasai Market Empowerment Trust (MMET) are also working at appealing against the kiondo decision. ”We want the kiondo back. It is our wealth, our culture. We will not sleep until we get it back,” Murage Kamore, programmes officer of MMET, said. MMET is an organisation representing 5,000 traders in Nairobi’s Maasai Market.

The threat to the use of the kikoi design has served as a wake-up call for some Kenyans. ”So many people have since come to us seeking to protect their products,” James Odek, the managing director of the Kenya Industrial Property Institute (KIPI), told IPS. KIPI is a government body mandated to administer industrial property rights and provide information to the public.

But many artists remain unaware of the danger of the theft of designs. Kamore said that MMET has started educating its members. ”Many are ignorant about intellectual property rights. I told one that his design risked being stolen by someone else if he did not protect it. He responded that he would come up with another design if this happened. This is the level of ignorance.”

MMET’s members mostly sell traditional wares including beadwork, baskets, arts, crafts and curios. Frequented by tourists, the Maasai Market has given the tourism industry a major boost.

Kamore said that MMET wants to sensitise artists on patenting their work. ”We are bringing designers and artists together to enlighten them on the matter. We will hold seminars, workshops and public forums and we will start a data base. We will check who is abusing intellectual property rights.

”If we do not do this, there are a lot of things that can be taken away,” said Kamore.

One obstacle is the lack of documented figures on the arts and crafts sector. The activities of sector are unregulated, Murage noted.

The high fees charged for patenting a product present another obstacle. To make an application for a patent costs up to 500 dollars in a country where more than 50 percent of Kenyans live below the poverty line of less than one US dollar a day.

For this reason, KIPI is entering into agreements with crucial sectors to encourage them to seek patents for their products. One example is a memorandum of understanding with the federation of Jua Kali Associations (referring to informal or small-scale businesses) which will see KIPI waive the application fees.

It is believed that the lack of legislation about cultural or tradition designs has made designs and other indigenous knowledge susceptible to pirating.

”Even international law does not address the matter. The issue has not been sorted out. We are in the process of developing a treaty. We have done a draft for African countries. The problem has been to define what tradition is,” noted Odek.

Developing nations have been advocating the adoption of such a treaty, something that has been opposed by industrialized nations. Companies from rich nations get hefty profits from exploiting indigenous knowledge from poor countries, hence the opposition.

Njeri Wangari, an artist with African Colours, a Nairobi-based organisation that markets art work using the internet, is worried about design theft. She wondered whether there was an ulterior motive behind the trade fair which ended this week in Nairobi.

“Why were Kenyans told to bring all their products to the exhibition? Most are not exposed to the issue of intellectual property rights. This may provide a chance for their work to be pirated,” Wangari told IPS. The trade fair with the theme ”One Village One Product” was supported by the Japanese government.