Women's rights in Kenyan jurisprudence


Book Description

Document from the year 2019 in the subject Law - Comparative Legal Systems, Comparative Law, , language: English, abstract: Attaching premium to the rights of women and their enforcement in Kenya, the scope of this book is calibrated on both the philosophies surrounding the existence of the various rights of women, their enforcement and realization. In the above context, the book seeks to foster understanding on the following topical issues - concept of gender parity; concept of gender legislation; feminism theory; reproductive rights of women; women’s property rights in Kenya; and the existence, practice and rights of women living in woman to woman marriages.Gender equality, defined as a numerical concept denotes real or relative numerical and proportional equality of girls and boys and women and men. To address the gender inequalities as a measure to the attainment of the desired equality, the place and operation of legislation has been considered as key. The book also studies jurisprudence on enforcement of reproductive rights in Kenya. Defined as a person’s rights relating to the control of his or her procreative activities, the book queries the numerous cluster of liberties relating to pregnancy, abortion, and sterilization especially the personal bodily rights of women among others. The book tests the woman concern in the making of reproductive decisions free from discrimination, coercion, or violence. As a highly contentious matter in the women rights campaign, the book studies the regime of property ownership in Kenya with specific regards to the rights of women to own, use and dispose property. The book examines Kenya’s jurisprudence to elicit the court’s and feminists’ perspectives in advancing the woman concern. Lastly, the book writes on a silent topical issue of woman to woman marriage which unlike lesbianism, is a practice where a woman marries another woman and assumes control over her and her offspring for the purpose of child bearing. The book finds out the broad features of woman to woman marriage and the dispute resolution process in this institution. Subsequently, the law governing woman to woman marriages and the nature of disputes relating to woman to woman marriage is also subjected into discussion.










The Woman Concern in Kenya's Jurisprudence


Book Description

The book studies the existence, enforcement and adjudication of women's rights in Kenya. Reviewing the concepts of gender parity, gender legislation and feminist legal theory, the book queries the existence and observance of women's reproductive rights; women's property rights; and the rights of women living in woman to woman marriages in Kenya. Predicated on the understanding that gender equality affords women and men equal enjoyment of human rights and equal opportunities, the book curves a niche as progress report of the existence and observance of women's rights in Kenya. The book therefore enunciates the call for gender equality as a device for establishing a sense of justice and fairness in the treatment of women and men in order to eventually achieve gender equality by requesting specific measures and differential treatment of women and men.













African Philosophy and the Quest for Autonomy


Book Description

As academic subject African philosophy is predominantly concerned with epistemology. It aims at re-presenting a lost body of authentic African thought. This apparently austere a-historical concern is framed by a grand narrative of liberation that cannot but politicise the quest for epistemological autonomy. By “politicise” I mean that the desire to re-cover an authentic African epistemology in order to establish African philosophy as autonomous subject, ironically re-iterates Western, enlightenment notions of the autonomous subject. Here, in the pursuit of an autonomous subject the terms of historical oppression are necessarily duplicated in the terms of liberation. In this study I use the term disfigurement to refer to the double-bind - peculiar to post-coloniality - in which the African subject finds itself when it has to establish and affirm a sense of apartheid (in order to confirm the assumption of difference) by inventing its own autonomy in a way that ironically conflicts with an African conception of the autonomous subject. The transcendental concern with epistemological authenticity and autonomy - indicative of an oppressive desire for Western style autonomy - necessary as it may be in a post-colonial context, is placed in an ethical framework that seeks to remain faithful to the African dictum of identity and autonomy “I am because we are”. Whereas the first three chapters are concerned with the transcendental question ‘what is African philosophy?’, the fourth and last chapter situates the ethical framework within which this question arises in the context of the recently “completed” South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission.