Women and the Constitution in Kenya

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Periodical article

Title:	Women and the Constitution in Kenya
Author:	Kibwana, Kivutha
Year:	1992
Periodical:	Verfassung und Recht in Übersee
Volume:	25
Issue:	1
Pages:	6-20
Language:	English
Geographic term:	Kenya
Subjects:	constitutions women law
Abstract:	This paper focuses on constitutional issues vis-à-vis the gender question in Kenya. It discusses the Kenyan Constitution and sex discrimination, women's voting and representation, marriage and citizenship, the implications of the coexistence of multiple systems of family law, women and property, women and human rights, and women and legal awareness. It explores the extent to which legal lacunae in the constitutional sphere perpetuate the inequalities that are identified, and examines the possible role of activist legal engineering in ameliorating these inequalities. It concludes that the Kenyan Constitution does not eliminate discrimination on account of sex. Although Kenya's Bill of Rights provides for political and civil rights for all individuals in the country, women's enjoyment of these rights is hampered particularly due to social and cultural constraints associated with male hegemony in a patriarchal society. Notes, ref.