Kenyan Women Sceptical Over Constitution’s Promise

Charity Karemi operates a pay-phone booth and sells mobile phone scratch cards in a Nairobi suburb east of the capital. She has mixed expectations of the benefits she will gain from Kenya’s new constitution.

KENYA: New Constitution a Winner With Women

A day after Kenyans voted to accept a new constitution, women across the country speak about their hopes and expectations.

The case of Elizabeth Chazima could stand for the story of millions of women in Kenya who have been robbed of their financial contributions to matrimonial assets.

KENYA: Resounding Yes to New Constitution

Jubilant supporters say it is a new dawn for Kenya. Sixty-seven percent of votes cast endorsed a new constitution more than two decades after reform was first raised.

HIV-positive Kenyans Need Tribunal to Address Rights Violations

Nancy Njeri’s life changed when she contracted HIV through a gang rape. Not only did the infection traumatise her, she was ostracised by close friends and neighbours whom she had known for almost a decade. She was fired from her job and when she attempted to sell vegetables, people boycotted her stand because of her status.

Q&A: ‘True African Leaders Have Nothing to Fear From ICC’

As the first Review Conference of the Rome Statute that established the International Criminal Court takes stock of the ICC's achievements and considers amendments to strengthen the pursuit of justice around the world, the first African woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize is one of its strongest defenders.

Kenyan Women Look to the Hague for Justice

Hanging from a rafter in Jane Wanjiku’s home is a calendar bearing the image of the International Criminal Court's chief prosecutor, Luis Moreno-Ocampo. It's an illustration of how the ICC has seized the imagination of ill-treated people around the world.

KENYA: Proposed Constitutional Amendment Sets Back Women’s Rights

Lillian Mutuku, a 34-year-old mother of three, describes her home in Katine area, in Kenya’s Eastern province Tala, as a harsh place to live. The soil is poor, she says, the sun beats down mercilessly and vegetation is sparse.

KENYA: New Bill to Improve State Witness Protection, If Passed

Kenyans affected by the violence that erupted after the country’s disputed presidential elections in 2007 may soon be able to speak out without fear. A new bill will offer better protection to state witnesses.

KENYA: Documenting Sexual Violence

The testimonies of women who survived sexual violence during post-election conflict in 2008 should be heard, say advocates. The magnitude of the crimes committed against women because of their gender must be recorded and prosecuted to prevent such violence from occurring again.

CLIMATE CHANGE: Africa Told ‘Stop Playing the Victim’

Critics of carbon trading, a strategy meant to combat global warming, say the buying and selling of carbon credits is being exploited.

CLIMATE CHANGE: Africa In the Global Carbon Trade

Carbon trading, as promoted by the Kyoto Protocol's Clean Development Mechanism (CDM), has become a key global strategy to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

KENYA: Police Reform? Return To Sender, Say Rights Groups

The top policeman accused of supporting Kenya's post-election violence, in which thousands were killed or raped because of their ethnicity, has been given a cushy job as head of the country’s postal service.

US: Clinton Pledges Military Aid to Somalia and Other African Countries

On Aug. 6, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton met with Somali President Sheikh Sharif Ahmed in Kenya and pledged to provide more military aid and training to the Somali Transitional Federal Government (TFG).

POLITICS: Clinton’s Africa Tour to Stress U.S. Commitments

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton left yesterday on a seven-nation trip to Africa that has elicited an appeal from Human Rights Watch for her to put human rights at the top of her agenda. During her eleven-day trip, Clinton will visit Kenya, South Africa, Angola, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Nigeria, Liberia, and Cape Verde.

KENYA: Govt Fails to Keep Word on Tribunals

The Kenyan government has reneged on its commitments to call on independent, international tribunals to try perpetrators of 2007 post-election violence. This move is being criticised by Human Rights Watch (HRW), a New York City-based organisation that advocates against human rights abuses.

RIGHTS-KENYA: Justice Waits While Debate Rages Over Tribunal

Kenya's cabinet is expected to meet Monday to review a bill establishing how the masterminds of the country's post-election violence will be punished.

RIGHTS: Kenya Cannot Fail to Prosecute Extra-Judicial Killings

When stock is taken of the Kenyan coalition government’s first year in office no marks will be awarded to its handling of extra-judicial killings in the country. Human rights activists claim that the police have murdered about 500 people in the past 16 months.

KENYA: Words that Reshape a Country’s Identity

The goal is ambitious: Kenya’s first literary journal, Kwani?, wants to bring new thinking to the country - and ultimately the continent - and reshape African identities. The journal aims to provoke, create, entertain and develop a literary community that isn’t afraid to question the status quo.

RIGHTS-KENYA: Rethinking 'Return Home'

The most urgent test of the grand coalition in Kenya is resettlement of the estimated 350,000 or so people made homeless by the violence after the December 2007 elections. Launched in May, the government's Operation 'Return Home' has been riddled with flaws and many experts on internal displacement argue it has exacerbated the crisis rather than resolving it.

Q&A: "They Mobilised Violence For Their Own Reasons"

The text of the Kenyan National Dialogue and Reconciliation Accord, brokered by former UN chief Kofi Annan in March this year and released to the press in full last Sunday, identifies land as one of the central issues creating "economic, social, political and environmental problems" in the country.

POLITICS-KENYA: Writing For Peace

Since January, a group of politically-conscious poets, writers and storytellers in Kenya has been writing an alternative account of the violence that shook Kenya during the first two months of the year. Their work is now part of the evidence before the Waki Commission inquiring into post-election violence in Kenya.