KENYA

World Report 2001 Entry

World Report 2000 Entry

World Report 1999 Entry

World Report 1998 Entry

 Kenya -- Spare the Child: Corporal Punishment in Kenyan Schools
For most Kenyan children, violence is a regular part of the school experience.  Teachers use caning, slapping, and whipping to maintain classroom discipline and to  punish children for poor academic performance. The infliction of corporal punishment  is routine, arbitrary, and often brutal. Bruises and cuts are regular by-products of  school punishments, and more severe injuries (broken bones, knocked-out teeth,  internal bleeding) are not infrequent. At times, beatings by teachers leave children permanently disfigured, disabled or dead. Such routine and severe corporal  pnishment violates both Kenyan law and international human rights standards.  According to  the U.N. Committee on the Rights of the Child, school corporal punishment is incompatible with the Convention on the Rights of the Child, the world's  most widely-ratified human rights treaty. Other human rights bodies have also found  some forms of school-based corporal punishment to be cruel, inhuman or degrading  treatment or punishment, and a practice that interferes with a child's right to receive an  education and to be
protected from violence.
(A1106), 9/99, 59pp., $7.00
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FAILING THE INTERNALLY DISPLACED
The UNDP Displaced Persons Program in Kenya
Between 1993 and 1995, the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) administered a program to return an estimated 300,000 persons who were driven off their land by state-sponsored “ethnic” violence. The Kenyan government instigated the violence after being forced to concede to a multiparty system in order to punish and disenfranchise ethnic groups associated with the opposition, while rewarding its supporters with illegally obtained land. Throughout the UNDP program, and since, the government has obstructed efforts to return the displaced to their homes. The government is responsible for harassing the displaced and those who assist them, while allowing the perpetrators of the violence to enjoy complete impunity. In terms of offering effective assistance, protection and reintegration to the thousands of internally displaced Kenyans, the UNDP’s record fell far short of what it could, and should, have been. Ultimately, the manner in which the program was run resulted in the greatest attention being placed on that part of the program that was relatively the easiest and least politically controversial to administer—the relief part—and a neglect of the protection, human rights, and long-term needs of the internally displaced. Failing the Internally Displaced confirms the fundamental importance of incorporating human rights considerations into international programs for the internally displaced, and identifies ways that UNDP, and the United Nations as a whole, can strengthen future implementation.
(2122) 6/97, 160 pp., ISBN 1-56432-212-2, $15.00/£12.95
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JUVENILE INJUSTICE
Police Abuse and Detention of Street Children in Kenya
In addition to the hazards of living on the streets, street children in Kenya are subject to frequent beatings, extortion, and sexual abuse by police. In violation of international law, they are rounded up and held for days or weeks in police lockups under deplorable physical conditions, commingled with adults and often beaten. Those who are brought to court are usually charged with vagrancy or are classified as being “in need of protection or discipline.” Pending adjudication of their cases, they are committed by courts to crowded remand institutions where they languish until their cases are decided. Without legal representation, these children may be finally committed by courts to correctional institutions called approved schools and borstal institutions, and prisons. Based on interviews with sixty children, this report documents the treatment of street children by police and in the juvenile justice system as a whole. Upwards of 40,000 street children live in Kenya. With their numbers on the rise, they are likely to continue to suffer violations of their rights, unless measures are taken to ensure better training and strict accountability of police, the judiciary, and staff of remand and correctional institutions.
(2149) 5/97, 168 pp., ISBN 1-56432-214-9, $15.00/£12.95
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OLD HABITS DIE HARD
Rights Abuses Follow Renewed Foreign Aid Commitments
Since December 1994, there has been a notable deterioration in the human rights situation in Kenya, evidenced by Pres. Moi's crackdown against human rights activists, opposition politicians and internally displaced persons. The escalation of human rights abuses has come in the wake of new commitments of foreign aid, pledged without strong human rights conditions, at the last consultative group meeting of Kenya's donors in December 1994. Since 1991, when aid was suspended on economic and human rights grounds, donors have failed to sustain pressure for the respect of human rights, in large part due to the justification that the government had taken significant steps toward economic reform.
(A706) 7/95, 15 pp., $3.00/£1.95
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MULTIPARTYISM BETRAYED IN KENYA
Continuing Rural Violence and Restrictions on Freedom of Speech and Assembly
After winning the first multiparty election since 1963 in December of 1993, the government of Daniel arap Moi has increased its harassment of the political opposition, bringing spurious criminal charges against opposition politicians, forcing unwarranted restrictions on their freedom of association, and arresting them without charge. Perhaps of most concern, however, is the political violence that erupted during the year leading up to the election that continues to affect some rural areas.
(A605) 7/94, 33 pp., $5.00/£2.95
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DIVIDE AND RULE
State-Sponsored Ethnic Violence in Kenya
President Daniel arap Moi of Kenya confidently predicted that the return of his country to a multiparty system would result in an outbreak of tribal violence that would destroy the nation. His prediction has been alarmingly fulfilled. One of the most disturbing developments in Kenya over the last two years has been the eruption of violent clashes between different ethnic groups. However, far from being the spontaneous result of a return to political pluralism, there is clear evidence that the government was involved in provoking this ethnic violence for political purposes and has taken no adequate steps to prevent it from spiralling out of control. So far, we estimate that the clashes have left at least 1,500 people dead and 300,000 displaced. If action is not swiftly taken, there is a real danger that Kenya could descend into civil war.
(1177) 11/93, 112 pp., ISBN 1-56432-117-7, $10.00/£8.95
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SEEKING REFUGE, FINDING TERROR
The Widespread Rape of Somali Women Refugees in North Eastern Kenya
While the tragedy in Somalia made daily news, the plight of thousands of refugees in neighboring Kenya remains unpublicized. Since 1992, approximately 300,000 Somalis have fled across the 800 mile Kenya-Somali border, most of them women and children. Many were the victims of violence, including rape, as they fled war-torn Somalia. They came to Kenya to escape these dangers only to face similar abuse while enroute to or living in the refugee camps.
(A513) 10/93, 25 pp., $3.00/£1.95
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Taking Liberties
This comprehensive assessment of the current human rights situation in Kenya goes well beyond those aspects that are ordinarily the focus of international attention: the efforts of Nairobi-based journalists, lawyers, clergy and political figures to promote the rule of law and an open, accountable system of government. This book also details the arbitrary, punitive and cruel measures by the government of President Daniel arap Moi against rural and urban squatter communities; the miserable conditions of confinement in detention facilities and prisons for those charged with common crimes as well as for those held for political offenses; the violence with which Kenya annexed 14,000 square kilometers of disputed territory on the border between Kenya, Sudan and Ethiopia in 1988; the brutality of the implementation of emergency powers in the North Eastern Province; and the discriminatory "screening" of ethnic Somalis and the ill- treatment of refugees from Kenya's war-torn neighbors.
(0367) 7/91, 448 pp., ISBN 1-56432-036-7, $20.00/£14.95
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