Hundreds of Kenyan girls, including some as young as three years old, filed a petition in the High Court on 11 October 2012 to try to force the police to investigate and prosecute rape cases they say have been ignored. The group of more than 240 girls accuse police of demanding bribes to investigate rape, refusing to record rapes unless the victims produced witnesses, and claiming victims had consented. One in five women and girls are victims of sexual violence in Kenya, according to a 2008/9 government survey. Rape is rarely reported due to stigma and a lack of faith in the police and the criminal justice system, although Kenya has strong legislation to protect children from sexual assault. Activists point out it is the first time in Kenya that action has been taken to hold police accountable for failing to protect girls from rape.
Values, Policies and Rights
The International Conference of the Great Lakes Region (ICGLR) seeks to coordinate the efforts of a regional security community while simultaneously addressing the difficult and deep-rooted problems of sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV) in its eleven member states. However, according to the author of this brief, the ICGLR’s 2011 Kampala Declaration on SGBV puts forward the right decisions, but with too many unrealistic timeframes. If the ICGLR tries to implement all 19 decisions from the summit simultaneously, it runs the risk of trying to implement too much, in too short a timeframe. The author argues that the ICGLR and its member states should rather focus on strengthening justice mechanisms at the national and local levels, as well as increase and enhance national and local competencies to investigate, police, prosecute and punish perpetrators of SGBV. Such efforts must be aligned with a second overall ambition of reducing stigma and assisting survivors. Justice and ending stigma are vital to future prevention and punishment efforts.
Almost eighteen years after the South African government signed the ICESCR, Cabinet has approved that South Africa will ratify the United Nations International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR). The ICESCR, together with the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and the Universal Declaration on Human Rights, constitutes the International Bill of Rights. The ICESCR has been ratifed by over 160 states since it was adopted in 1966, 48 of which are African states and 11 of which are member states of the Southern African Development Community. South Africa’s ratification of the ICESCR will unambiguously signal its commitment to be legally bound by the full range of human rights recognised under international law. The ICESCR Ratification Campaign Driver Group also encourages South Africa to also ratify the Optional Protocol to the ICESCR (OP-CESCR). The Optional Protocol is an extra treaty that promotes a culture of accountability around the ICESCR, empowering vulnerable and marginalised groups to lodge individual complaints at the international level regarding violations of their socio-economic rights. The Optional Protocol is yet to come into force, as it requires 10 states to ratify it and, at present, only eight states have done so.
This Guidance Note has been developed to provide a coordinated human-rights-based approach to promoting universal access to HIV prevention, treatment, care and support in the context of adult sex work. It provides clarification and direction regarding approaches to reduce HIV risk and vulnerability in the context of sex work. Its policy and programmatic emphasis rests on three interdependent pillars: access to HIV prevention, treatment, care and support for all sex workers and their clients; supportive environments and partnerships that facilitate universal access to needed services, including life choices and occupational alternatives to sex work for those who want to leave it; and action to address structural issues related to HIV and sex work. Comprehensive rights-based programmes on HIV and sex work are argued to be critical to the success of the HIV response, and policies and programmes to address the links between HIV and sex work must recognise the social and geographic diversity of sex work, as well as the rapid changes that may occur in patterns of sex work.
The writer of this article discusses conflicting conditions for homosexual people in Kenya with impact on health. On the one hand there has been increased visibility of Kenya’s gay community in recent years, despite the fact that homosexuality is illegal in the country, with greater social networking and collaborative efforts between the gay community and sex workers, civil society, parastatals and professional bodies. On the other hand the author also observes harmful practices of ‘corrective rape’ (where lesbians are raped), homophobia in schools, high suicide rates among gays and lesbians, and discrimination such as in the stoning of a suspected gay man in a Nairobi slum.
Since first publication of this guidance in 2003, a considerable amount of new data have been produced and published, relating to epidemiological, clinical, service delivery, legal and human rights aspects of providing safe abortion care. Therefore, preparation for this revision of the guidance included extensive literature review and updating of recommendations related to service delivery, legal and policy issues, and the conduct of new systematic reviews and updates of outdated systematic reviews to provide the evidence for recommendations related to clinical questions prioritised by an international panel of experts. The substantial revisions in this update reflect changes in methods of abortion and related care, service delivery as it applies to the availability and use of new methods, and application of human rights for policy-making and legislation related to abortion, among other topics. Recommendations in the 2003 guidance for which there was no new evidence remain unchanged and are also included in the new edition.
This report was submitted to the United Nations Human Rights Committee to inform its review of Kenya’s implementation of the Provisions of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) in relation to torture. It adopts a thematic approach and specifically focuses on legal issues that relate to protection from torture and cruel and degrading treatment under the Covenant, including extra-judicial killings, the death penalty, the principle of non-refoulement, treatment of prisoners, access to adequate medical care for prisoners and the right to a fair trial. It integrates a gender and child-rights perspective and examines the problems related to domestic violence, female genital mutilation and reproductive health rights. The overall conclusion is that, while Kenya has endeavoured to include the principles of the ICCPR in its newly promulgated Constitution of 2010 and legislative framework, there continue to be important gaps, with inadequate legislation for criminalising torture and lenient sentences for those found guilty.
Urbanisation is one of Africa’s most pressing issues, according to this publication by African Centre for Cities. However, most political and policy leaders remain in denial about its centrality and urgency. The phenomenon represents the most complex and intractable policy questions and as long as Africans do not take responsibility to shift the contemporary situation of policy failure, we are in for a crisis, says the African centre for Cities. This publication is intended to be a resource to policy activists in African governments, development agencies, social movements, universities and business sectors who are committed to addressing the current inertia surrounding urbanisation policy development and should be of help activists to develop a clear agenda on urbanisation on the continent.
This editorial welcomes the World Health Organisation’s (WHO) update of its 2003 publication ‘Safe abortion: Technical and policy guidance for health systems’. In updating its guidance on safe abortion, WHO has responded to a major neglected public health need of women, Fathalla and Cook argue here. Unsafe induced abortion is not only a public health problem, it is also a human rights issue. As governments are obligated by their national constitutions or by legally binding international human rights conventions to protect the right to the highest attainable standard of health, they should be increasingly applying human rights principles to facilitate women’s transparent access to safe abortion services in their countries. The WHO update highlights the growing trend for national courts and regional and international human rights bodies, including the United Nations treaty monitoring bodies, to take a rights-based approach to this issue. The authors call for abortion to be decriminalised, as well as for further research aimed at developing simpler, improved methods for performing induced abortion.
On 4-5 July 2012, the African Development Bank (AfDB), as a key partner of the Harmonisation for Health in Africa (HHA) mechanism, organised a high-level dialogue on ‘Value for Money, Sustainability and Accountability in the Health Sector’ in Tunis. The conference gathered over African 50 Ministers of Finance and Health and their representatives from 33 African countries, Parliamentarians as well as over 400 participants from the public and private sectors, academia, civil society and media globally. The conference emphasised the urgent need for greater domestic accountability, reduced dependence on foreign aid and the role of Parliamentarians as well as using e-health in achieving greater value money in the delivery of health services in Africa. Participants also stressed the need to tackle critical shortages, maldistribution and inadequate performance of health workers in Africa. Ethiopia’s Health Extension Worker (HEW) Programme was put forward as a good example of innovative policy interventions to health worker shortages.