The law prohibits arrest or detention without a court order unless there are reasonable grounds to believe that a suspect has committed or will commit a crime. However, police arbitrarily arrested and detained people, charged them with a crime designed to cover up underlying police abuses, or charged them with crimes more serious than those they had committed. For example, legal protection NGOs and prison officials have reported excessive use of the charge of “theft by force,” which can carry a life sentence even if the violence or threats of violence were insignificant. As a result, some petty offenders have received disproportionate sentences. NGOs reported an increase in arbitrary arrests and detentions of activists, journalists, and bloggers during the year. In October, the Coalition of Human Rights Defenders said it had supported 127 activists arrested or detained since March, including by providing them with a lawyer and releasing them on bail. Most activists were released within a short period of time, usually less than 24 hours, and in most cases prosecutors either refused to prosecute or the courts dismissed the cases. In September, the NGO`s Article 19 said at least 20 journalists, including online communicators, had been arrested or threatened with prosecution since March while reporting on the government`s efforts to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic. Female genital mutilation/circumcision (FGM/C): The law prohibits the practice of FGM/C, the use of the services of a person performing FGM/C, or sending a person out of the country to undergo the procedure.
The law also prohibits making derogatory remarks about a woman who has not undergone FGM/C. Government officials have often participated in public awareness programs to prevent this practice. Nevertheless, individuals practiced FGM/C on a large scale, especially in some rural areas. According to a UNICEF study published in March, despite the legal ban on FGM/C and the government`s progress in eliminating the practice, myths remained deeply rooted in some local cultures. The study concluded that about 21 percent of adult women between the ages of 15 and 49 had undergone the procedure at some point in their lives, but the practice was heavily focused on certain communities, including the Maasai (78 percent), Samburu (86 percent) and Somalis (94 percent). There is no established system of restitution or compensation for those who have been declared squatters and ordered to leave their land. Private and communal conflicts were frequent due to land conflicts. The government used eviction and demolition to reclaim allegedly illegally occupied public lands. In May, the government declared a moratorium on evictions during the COVID-19 pandemic, but evictions continued to be reported. The Constitution prohibits gender-based discrimination in land and property and gives women equal rights to inheritance and access to land. The Constitution also provides for the enactment of laws to protect the rights of wives to matrimonial regimes during and after marriage and affirms that parties to a marriage have equal rights at the time of marriage, during marriage and at the time of its dissolution. In September, a judge who presided over matrimonial property litigation ruled that the housewife should be considered a full-time job.
The judge ruled that it was unfair for the courts to rule that housewives do not contribute to the financial well-being of the household. According to civil society groups, women continued to face institutional and legal barriers that impeded their access to justice and a fair share of marital property after the dissolution of marriage. In addition, little was known about the elements of the law that dictated how to apply for an inheritance, and many inheritances continued to be passed only from father to son. This article was published in AHRLJ Volume 12 No 1 2012. The enactment of the Children`s Act in 2001 was an important milestone in the implementation of international standards on children`s rights in Kenya. The law is still the first law that essentially attempts to domesticate Kenya`s obligations under a human rights treaty (in this case, the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child and the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child). Nearly a decade after the law came into force, there is a poignant lesson to be learned. This is the case that in contexts such as Kenya, where full compliance with international standards on children`s rights requires a process of comprehensive review of existing laws and policies, even the adoption of a consolidated law such as the Children`s Act is not enough. On the contrary, the process requires, on the one hand, a continuous review of all laws and, on the other, the introduction of administrative and other practical measures. An important development is the adoption of a new constitution in 2010.
However, realizing this potential in the new dispensation requires strong political commitment to ensure the allocation of resources and the introduction of practical measures to implement child rights laws.
