KENYA
World Report
2001 Entry
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2000 Entry
World
Report 1999 Entry
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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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