NEWS
July 2007
New Report produced by the Center and FIDA!
Providing women with affordable, accessible, and safe health services is a key obligation of the government of Kenya. However, as a new report produced by the Center for Reproductive Rights and the Federation of Women Lawyers—Kenya vividly illustrates, Kenya’s health care sector suffers from systemic and widespread problems that deny women high quality family planning and maternal health care.
Through interviews with women, health care providers, and government officials, Failure to Deliver: Violations of Women's Human Rights in Kenyan Health Facilities documents a wide range of violations of women's fundamental human rights. Findings include physical and verbal abuse of women seeking maternity services, detention of women and their babies for unpaid medical bills, and staff and equipment shortages that impair the ability to provide good care.
Very few formal channels exist to provide redress for the serious human rights violations taking place in both public and private health care facilities throughout Kenya. This report throws into sharp relief the need to remedy the rights violations that women in Kenya have endured, and to implement systematic changes to ensure that women's rights are protected when they seek reproductive health care.
March 2007
Kenya Must Strengthen and Protect Girls' Reproductive Health and Rights, UN Body Says
In its review of Kenya's compliance with the Convention on the Rights of the Child, the Committee on the Rights of the Child issued recommendations on several of the key issues highlighted in a December 2006 shadow letter submitted by the Center and the Federation of Women Lawyers-Kenya.
In its Concluding Observations, the Committee called on the Kenyan government for the following:
- Improved access to sex education and reproductive health services to address rising rates of HIV/AIDS and maternal mortality among adolescent girls.
- Better funding for comprehensive sex education for youth that promotes contraceptive use and includes confidential counseling and testing.
- Free, adequate health and social services for all pregnant women.
- Awareness-raising campaigns that strengthen and enforce the prohibition of harmful traditional practices, such as female genital mutilation and early marriage.
The Committee also noted that the criminalization of abortion in cases of rape and incest—and the difficulties pregnant schoolgirls have in continuing their education—contribute to maternal deaths among adolescent girls. The Center commends the Committee for its strong recommendations; their implementation would significantly improve the lives of girls in Kenya.
November 2005
In 2003, the African Union adopted a Protocol on the Rights of Women in Africa to supplement the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights. The Protocol, which entered into force in November 2005, provides broad protection for African women’s human rights, including sexual and reproductive rights. The Center's briefing paper explains how the Protocol can be used to protect and enforce reproductive rights in Africa.
PUBLICATIONS
Reports
Female Genital Mutilation: A Matter of Human Rights
An Advocate's Guide to Action
"Our position is that FC/FGM must be acknowledged as a violation of the human rights of women and girls - it cannot be separated from deep-seated and pervasive discrimination against women."
"This practical guide is intended for advocates working to stop the practice of FC/FGM. Its objective is to assist advocates in their efforts to engage their governments in this struggle."
"The international community has generally regarded FC/FGM as a violation of children's rights because FC/FGM is commonly performed upon girls between the ages of four and twelve, who are not in a position to give informed consent."
Female Genital Mutilation: A Guide to Laws and Policies Worldwide
This is the most extensive report currently available on the use of law and policy to address the practice of female genital mutilation (FGM). In encouraging a pro-active governmental response to the practice, the book places it firmly in a human rights and legal framework. The result of a major research report in 41 countries, both North and South, it covers not only the prevalence of FGM but the various laws and other measures in place to prevent it.
The book describes FGM, its history, its consequences for health and the movement now working to combat it. It then reports on each country - its prevalence and governmental measures for its eradication.
Breaking the Silence: The Global Gag Rule's Impact on Unsafe Abortion
Breaking the Silence: The Global Gag Rule’s Impact on Unsafe Abortion, a report by the Center for Reproductive Rights, gives a voice to advocates in countries where the gag rule has impeded their efforts to slow down spiraling rates of unsafe abortion. Center researchers conducted more than 100 in-depth interviews in four countries—Ethiopia, Kenya, Peru, and Uganda—with a broad cross-section of actors including NGOs that have accepted USAID funding and are therefore "gagged" from advocating for abortion. As far as we know, this research is the most comprehensive survey of the rule’s impact on gagged organizations and exemplifies what is happening in many of the nearly sixty countries receiving USAID funds.
Legal Grounds: Reproductive and Sexual Rights in African Commonwealth Courts
Read the report online (PDF) > >
Order from our online bookstore > >
Reproductive and sexual rights, which are guaranteed in international and regional human rights treaties, mean nothing if they are not recognized and enforced by national-level courts. Legal Grounds: Sexual and Reproductive Rights in African Commonwealth Courts is an attempt to provide much-needed information about decisions and gender-relevant jurisprudence of national courts throughout African Commonwealth countries. It offers a crucial starting point for women’s rights advocates who are seeking to further develop their litigation and grassroots strategies.
Women of the World: Anglophone Africa Progress Report 2001
- Order from the online bookstore
- Purchase of Women of the World: Laws and Polices Affecting Their Reproductive Lives, Anglophone Africa (©1997, $20) includes a free copy of the Progress Report.
- Read the Kenya chapter (PDF) from Women of the World: Anglophone Africa
- Women of the World: Anglophone Africa Progress Report 2001 is available online in PDF format.
Women of the World: Laws and Policies Affecting Their Reproductive Lives – Anglophone Africa
Read the chapter on Kenya from our report, Women of the World: Laws and Policies Affecting Their Reproductive Lives – Francophone Africa > >
Women of the World: Laws and Policies Affecting Their Reproductive Lives - Francophone Africa, is the result of an in-depth examination of laws and policies affecting women's reproductive health and rights in seven countries of Francophone Africa: Benin, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Chad, Côte d'Ivoire, Mali, and Senegal.
The report makes clear that although these countries have adopted policies to address many of the reproductive health problems common to the region, including high levels of maternal and infant mortality and high prevalence rates of HIV/AIDS, these policies have not had the desired effect. Women continue to suffer in the face of discriminatory customary laws and practices that undermine their social and economic autonomy. It is recommended that governments should resolve the contradictions between customary laws and statutory laws, and between laws and policies. In the absence of a commitment on the part of national governments to resolve these contradictions or to ensure that those laws already in place are respected and applied, women will continue to face discrimination in those areas that most directly affect their public and private lives.
Briefing Papers
Reporting to Treaty Monitoring Bodies
Organizations like the Center for Reproductive Rights and its partners play an essential role in providing credible and reliable independent information to international human rights treaty monitoring bodies regarding the legal status and real-life situation of women and the efforts being made by governments to comply with human rights treaties. Shadow reports work to supplement, or "shadow," governments' reports on human rights issues by calling attention to their strides, as well as their setbacks.
Articles
Advocacy in Whispers: The Impact of the USAID Global Gag Rule Upon Free Speech and Free Association in the Context of Abortion Law Reform in Three East African Countries
by Patty Skuster
October, 2004
Read more > >
Regional Partner Organizations
