A victory for women’s rights in Kenya was celebrated yesterday as members of a legal-activist group gathered at L’Espresso Bar Mercurio in Toronto.
The Equality Effect, led by an international team of human rights lawyers, advocates for legal equality for women and girls in African countries.
Its cause for celebration was the successful conclusion of one of its initiatives that took the Kenyan police to court for failing to investigate rape allegations involving girls aged three to 17.
The initiative, called the 160 Girls Project, is named after the number of girls who spent time at an eastern Kenyan rape shelter and agreed to testify against the police in the High Court of Kenya. According to reports from The Equality Effect, a girl is raped in Kenya every 30 minutes. Some Kenyan men believe having sex with a virgin will cure them of AIDS.
The testimonies in the 34-page document include an eight-year-old girl who was raped by three neighbours and subsequently contracted a sexually transmitted disease, and a 12-year-old girl who became pregnant from a police officer. Almost all of the girls who testified stated the police did not fully investigate their reports.
As a result of the ruling on May 27, Kenyan police have received a court order to fully enforce all existing laws to protect the rights of girls. Any further failure of the police to enforce these laws will put them in contempt of court, causing them to face penalties and even jail time.
“The ruling is such a beautiful indictment of the police behaviour. It’s very clear, it’s very damning and it has everything you want it to say,” says May Cheng, a partner at Fasken Martineau who works with The Equality Effect. “In human rights law, this is like being struck by lightening three times… it’s huge.”
The ruling will protect more than 10 million Kenyan girls, and members of The Equality Effect plan to conduct similar challenges in other African countries.