GENEVA (3 May 2017) - The Committee on the Elimination of Racial
Discrimination this morning concluded its review of the combined fifth
to seventh periodic report of Kenya on the progress made in the
implementation of the provisions of the International Convention on the
Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination.
Maryann Njau-Kimani, Secretary, Justice and Constitutional Affairs,
Office of the Attorney General of Kenya, presenting the report, said
that the upcoming general elections in August 2017 raised concern about
ethnic and political tensions they might engender, and informed the
Committee of steps taken to prevent the use of hate speech and
incitement to violence in this context, such as the setting up of an
early warning mechanism dubbed the Uwiano Platform. Various legal and
affirmative action measures to tackle inequality and socio-economic
marginalization included land laws aimed at securing ownership and
addressing historical land injustices, and the increased allocation to
the Equalization Fund to provide basic services to marginalized areas
and bring the quality of services up to the levels enjoyed by citizens
in other parts of the country. The Restorative Justice Fund had been
set up in 2016 with a budget of $96 million spread over three years, to
provide relief to victims and survivors of historical injustices. The
education budget had been increased to $2 billion in the 2017/2018
financial year.
The Kenya Human Rights Commission said that Kenya should widen the
scope of the definition of hate speech and put an end to the VIP
treatment of those who engaged in hate speech. The legacy of racial
and socio-economic discrimination was very visible in land use, thus
land reform must take place to resolve ethnic tensions over land rights
and one way to approach this was by implementing recommendations by
the Truth and Justice Commission to eliminate the historical
injustices.
In the dialogue that followed, Committee Experts recognized the
efforts of Kenya in providing shelter, care and basic services to
hundreds of thousands of refugees for more than 25 years. Important
challenges to the elimination of racial discrimination remained, such
as hate speech, incitement to ethnic hatred and violence, and lack of
access to justice for marginalized people, while discrimination based
on ethnicity was rampant in the society, expressed as tribalism,
nepotism, and cronyism. Experts were concerned about the land issue
which was the source of ethnic tensions and inquired how historical
injustices were being redressed. Noting that the new land laws intended
to break-up large chunks of land owned by people privileged by the
colonial regimes, the delegation was asked how it would protect that
land, currently held under the 99 year leases which were ending in five
years, from grabs by cartels and private corporations in which many
politicians had a stake. Information was further requested on the
disposition of indigenous people from their land, the implementation of
counter-terrorism laws and measures taken to bring the legislation in
line with international standards, and durable solutions for refugees.
Nicolás Marugán, Committee Expert and Rapporteur for Kenya, in his
closing remarks noted the efforts and steps taken to eliminate racial
discrimination and urged Kenya to fully respect the principle of
non-refoulement with regard to refugees and to increase budgetary
allocations to its national human rights institution.
In her concluding remarks, Ms. Njau-Kimani said that Kenya was
encouraged by the Committee’s recognition of its efforts to eliminate
racial discrimination and reiterated Kenya’s commitment to continuing
to take steps to ensure that its citizens were free from all forms of
discrimination.
The delegation of Kenya included representatives of the Office of the
Attorney General, Ministry of Lands and Physical Planning, National
Cohesion and Integration Commission, and the Permanent Mission of Kenya
to the United Nations Office at Geneva.
The Committee will next meet in public at 3 p.m. today, 3 May to start
the review of the combined twenty-third and twenty-fourth periodic
report of Cyprus (
CERD/C/CYP/23-24).
Report
The combined fifth to seventh periodic report of Kenya can be accessed here:
CERD/C/KEN/5-7.
Presentation of the Report
MARYANN NJAU-KIMANI, Secretary, Justice and Constitutional Affairs,
Office of the Attorney General of Kenya, presenting the report of Kenya,
recognized that many people, including refugees and migrants, still
faced human rights violations as a result of racial discrimination, and
said that Kenya had taken decisive and concrete actions to realize the
principles enshrined in the Convention. General elections would take
place on 8 August 2017, which could give rise to concerns about ethnic
and political tensions they might engender; Kenya had taken steps to
prevent the use of hate speech and incitement to violence, and had
established a unit to monitor social media platforms to identify those
who engaged in hate speech and incitement to violence. It had also
developed guidelines for the review of bulk political text messages
before they were sent out to the public. Further, state and non-state
actors had come together in their efforts to monitor political rallies
in the run up to the elections and had set up an early warning
mechanism dubbed the Uwiano Platform; 225 cohesion monitors had been
trained and deployed in all 47 counties.
Various legal and affirmative action measures had been taken to tackle
inequality and socio-economic marginalization. In 2016, Kenya had
adopted the community land act to prohibit all forms of discrimination
with regard to community land and enable communities to secure formal
legal recognition of their land rights. Kenya had addressed the
historical land injustices and provided for remedies of restitution and
compensation in the amendment to the land laws act. The mining act
provided for benefit sharing between the national and county
governments and the community, to ensure that the prospecting and
exploration of minerals did not lead to the marginalization and
impoverishment of communities that owned or occupied the land. In
addition, the allocation to the Equalization Fund had been increased
from approximately $58 million in 2016 to $74 million in 2017; the fund
had been set up by the Constitution to provide basic services to
marginalized areas and bring the quality of services up to the levels
generally enjoyed by citizens in other parts of the country.
The Restorative Justice Fund had been set up in 2016 with the budget
of $96 million spread over three years, to provide relief to victims
and survivors of historical injustices. In order to ensure ethnic
diversity in public services, Kenya had adopted the diversity policy
while the National Gender and Equality Commission monitored the
affirmative action in the devolved governments on the access to
employment, education, health and information by women, persons with
disabilities, ethnic and other minorities and marginalized
communities. Various strategies to address extreme poverty and support
historically disadvantaged regions and groups had been adopted over the
years, including the Vision 2030, which was the development blueprint,
and the national safety net programme, which provided cash transfers
to the elderly, orphans, vulnerable children, and persons with severe
disabilities.
In order to improve access to education for nomadic people, Kenya had
adopted a policy of constructing one boarding secondary school in each
arid and semi-arid county, setting up mobile schools and school feeding
programmes for all children in nomadic communities, and supporting
open and distant learning, including through community radio
programmes. The education budget had been increased to $2 billion in
the 2017/2018 financial year.
Questions by the Country Rapporteurs
NICOLÁS MARUGÁN, Committee Expert and Rapporteur for Kenya, recognized
the efforts of Kenya in hosting hundreds of thousands of refugees for
more than 25 years and providing them with care and basic services, and
also welcomed the increased allocations to the Equalization Fund.
Kenya faced important challenges in the elimination of racial
discrimination, including access to justice, hate speech in the media,
labour discrimination, trafficking in persons, and the role of civil
society and citizenship.
What steps would Kenya take to align the definition of racial
discrimination with the Convention, and would it recognize the
competence of the Committee under article 14 to receive individual
communications?
The delegation was asked to inform the Committee about complaints
received for racial, ethnic, religious or other forms of discrimination,
which areas they addressed, and also to provide data on prosecutions,
sentences and compensation provided to victims of racial
discrimination.
Mr. Marugán expressed appreciation for the very pertinent work of the
National Cohesion and Integration Commission and asked about the exact
mandate of the Commission, the resources it had at its disposal, and
how its independence from the Government was ensured. What was the
‘ebay system’ of racial discrimination complaints and how did it work?
In its Vision 2030, Kenya had stated that lack of access to justice
had a direct link to poverty and recognized this as a pillar for poverty
reduction; in this connection, could the delegation inform about the
legal aid act 2016 and how it was implemented, in particular in
relation to victims of racial discrimination?
The 2007 media act had established a complaints commission for hate
speech and discrimination by the media – how did the commission work in
practice, how many complaints had it received and on which issues? The
National Human Rights Commission had received 27 complaints of labour
discrimination – how many of those were linked to ethnic
discrimination?
What were the intentions concerning the ratification of the
International Labour Organization Convention 189 on domestic workers?
The Committee Rapporteur commended the Kenyan Government and people
for their generosity towards refugees and for hosting hundreds of
thousands of refugees for a very long time. At the moment, there were
480,000 refugees in the country and of those more than 300,000 were
Somali refugees. What was the situation of the Dabaab camp and what
options did refugees have to live outside of formal settlements?
GAY MCDOUGALL, Committee Expert and Co-Rapporteur for Kenya,
commended the leadership role of Kenya in the adoption of the Agenda
2030 and the Sustainable Development Goals.
Alternative sources claimed that discrimination based on ethnicity was
rampant in the Kenyan society, and was expressed as tribalism,
nepotism, and cronyism.
What was the ethnic and racial
composition of Kenyan society? Who were those at the bottom 50 per
cent of the average income and how would affirmative action be used to
lift them up first, as stated in Sustainable Development Goal 10?
What special and concrete measures had been taken to ensure that all
ethnic groups had equal access to public services, including health and
education?
Large swaths of land where marginalized people lived were owned by
foreigners - how had this come about and how would historical injustices
regarding land ownership be rectified?
The State party’s report claimed that internally displaced persons who
had been victims of election violence had either happily returned to
their land or had been compensated; but, alternative sources painted a
different picture. Could the delegation comment and provide data on
returnees and on compensation? Concerning people who had been displaced
due to electoral violence, had there been a predominant ethnic
character of those victims of violence? The delegation was asked to
provide ethnically disaggregated data about persons displaced by
electoral violence, and information about the use and destination of
the reconstruction and support fund.
The Committee was alarmed by the situation in slums and informal
settlements and asked the delegation about forced evictions as well as
measures taken to ensure that the human rights of people were
protected. Could the delegation comment on the slow progress of
measures taken to upgrade and improve the situation in slums and
informal settlements and provide the people with minimum living
conditions and basic services.
Who were the people living in the slums and what was the demographic
composition of the slum population? Were they not treated fairly
because of their ethnicity? It was imperative to address this critical
situation that might lead to outbreaks of violence, including on
ethnic grounds. What were the reasons for the non-recognition of
slums, the non-guarantee of the right of tenure, and the delay in the
provision of basic services in informal settlements?
JOSE FRANCISCO CALI TZAY, Committee Vice-Chair and Co-Rapporteur for
Kenya, noted with concern the escalation in the pattern of violations
against Kenya’s indigenous people and attacks against their ancestral
land and heritage. Were the courts in Kenya using the language and
tools available in the International Labour Organization Convention 179
on the rights of indigenous people?
Indigenous people continued to be discriminated against through
resettlement and eviction from their lands and this issue was of great
concern to the Committee. What steps were being taken to render
justice to indigenous people? One of the obstacles to accessing
justice was the lack of trust in security forces, which were the ones
who violated the rights in the first place.
The delegation was asked about the protection of indigenous people
against multiple and intersecting forms of discrimination; disparities
in personal land ownership regulations between indigenous and
non-indigenous persons; and how many and which indigenous people had
been officially recognized by the Government.
Questions from the Experts
GUN KUT, Committee Expert and Follow-up Rapporteur for Kenya, recalled
that after its previous review of Kenya in 2011, the Committee had
requested in its concluding observations follow-up information on
measures taken to address incitement to hatred in political discourse
and forced eviction of Endorois communities from the Bogoria Lake.
Kenya should provide follow-up information as requested.
A Committee Expert took up the issue of vulnerable ethnic groups in
Kenya and noted that the situation of Nubians was very specific: they
were not original inhabitants of Kenya, but were now part of the
society who had lived there for more than 100 years. It was believed
that there were about 100,000 ethnic Nubians in the country, but most
were stateless and there was no mechanism in place for their formal
integration into the society. Another vulnerable group were forest
people, who were not pastoralists but had their ancestral land; their
right to land must be protected.
Another Expert noted the institutional complexity in Kenya as well as
the impressive number of ‘bills in waiting’ – laws that awaited
adoption, one of which was the law and policy on national legal aid of
2013. What were the provisions of the legislation on legal aid, did it
apply to both criminal and civil cases, what budget did it have, and
who appointed the lawyers?
An Expert welcomed that Kenya was currently reviewing its hate speech
legislation, while the cyber-crime bill would criminalize hate speech
through the use of information technology and social media.
It was alarming that in Nairobi, 36 per cent of the population lived
in slums and informal settlements, 23 per cent in Mombasa, and 56 per
cent in Kisuma. According to the Vision 2030, some 200,000 housing
units should be constructed annually – what was the status of
implementation of this provision?
What was the status of the bill on the elimination of racial discrimination in the context of the elections?
What was the situation of albino persons in Kenya? Albinos often
faced serious discrimination and violence in neighbouring countries.
There were some ethnic groups in Kenya which enjoyed advantages in
terms of their participation in political and public life. What
concrete steps were being taken to ensure the equal participation of
all, regardless of ethnicity, and what affirmative actions and measures
were in place for disadvantaged groups?
A Committee Expert noted that the definition of racial discrimination
was not complete and should be brought in line with the Convention. A
particular concern was that ethnic discrimination was not adequately
addressed by the law, nor were its manifestations such as tribalism,
nepotism, or inequitable distribution of resources. The Committee was
concerned about the rampant hate speech in political discourse and
urged Kenya to ensure that all politicians who incited hatred on the
basis of ethnic, racial, religious or any other grounds were prosecuted
by the full force of the law.
Another Expert remarked that 56 years since independence was a short
time for a society emerging from colonial oppression to transform into a
free one; post-colonial legacies were obvious and they must be
addressed by the Government.
One of the challenges Kenya must address was the education of
pastoralist communities – one indicator of the dimension of this
challenge was adult illiteracy rates which among some pastoralist
groups were as high as 96 per cent. Which steps were being taken to
increase the access of pastoralists to education at both primary and
secondary levels?
How were education curricula teaching national pride and identity in the post-colonial context?
The delegation was asked how Kenya made sure that all counties
implemented affirmative action measures, particularly the quotas for
political representation; the situation of trafficking in persons,
whether victims came from specific ethnic groups, and the reasons
behind very low rates of prosecution – only seven per cent of
perpetrators were actually prosecuted; and the support provided by the
international community to Kenya’s efforts to host refugees.
Statement by the National Human Rights Institution
Kenya Human Rights Commission drew attention to the very limited
definition of hate speech and the need to broaden its scope, and in
particular to put an end to the VIP treatment of those who engaged in
hate speech. The new Constitution now provided a clearer definition of
minority communities from a demographic, economic and ethnic
perspective and also recognized a broader definition of marginalized
groups.
The Kenya Human Rights Commission continued to work with the
Government to identify people who had been historically discriminated
against and to eliminate the inequalities they suffered. Historical
injustices were linked to the economic and regional marginalisation of
the population, inherited from the postcolonial period. Administrative
boundaries in Kenya followed ethnic boundaries, and certain ethnic
groups were over-represented in the administration; for example, only
18 out of 47 counties met the quotas for the distribution of posts in
the administration.
The legacy of racial and socio-economic discrimination was very
visible in land use planning, and the question of land rights was a
cause of ethnic tensions. The regime set up by the British had offered
the best land, in the highlands, to the whites, thus land reform to
combat discrimination was needed, and in this regard, Kenya should
implement the recommendations of the Truth and Justice Commission to
eliminate the historical injustices suffered by Kenya.
Responses by the Delegation
In response to questions and comments raised by Committee Experts, the
delegation said that all people of African descent in Kenya were
indigenous to Kenya and recognized that there were groups and regions
which had been historically marginalized and excluded from economic and
social development.
Kenya had a vibrant civil society that played an important role in
the promotion and protection of human rights in the country. The
Government appreciated Kenya’s civil society, and collaborated actively
with it in a number of joint initiatives, including in areas of access
to justice and restorative justice. Civil society organizations were
obliged by the law to present their annual reports and audited
accounts.
Kenya was taking active steps and affirmative action to implement the
principle of non-discrimination and ensure that no one was left
behind. Thus, the Equalizing Fund had been set up by the Constitution
to provide basic services to marginalized areas and bring the quality
of services up to the levels generally enjoyed by citizens in other
parts of the country. A devolved system of government ensured that
local concerns were taken into account and that services were brought
closer to the population; since 2013, more than $10 billion had been
allocated to counties to support service delivery, which had been
distributed on a needs-basis as measured by the poverty index.
Women in Kenya were traditionally excluded and marginalized, and this
problem was being addressed through the support for secondary and
post-secondary education of girls, and economic empowerment of women –
to date, 72,000 women groups had received more than $8 billion in
loans, for which the repayment rate was 93 per cent. In order to
support the education of people in marginalized areas, initiatives were
in place to support re-entry for school drop-outs, especially girls
who had to drop out due to pregnancy.
There were more than 22 ethnic tribes in Kenya, which varied in their
levels of economic and social development; marginalization had started
during the colonialism period, with missionaries constructing schools
and clinics in certain areas of the country and favouring certain
population groups. The public service act and the diversity policy for
public service had been adopted in 2016 to address those issues, and
since then a sharp increase in ethnic diversity representation in
counties had been noted.
Poverty did not have an ethnic face in Kenya, but it was prevalent in
arid and semi-arid areas of the country. There were important
differences between different areas within counties, as well as between
rural and urban areas. Initiatives to reduce poverty focused on
education, agriculture and infrastructure; reduction in maternal
mortality; and improvement of access to water, particularly in arid
areas.
The restorative justice act had been adopted in 2016, which addressed
historical injustices committed during the period 1963 to 2008.
All parents had a legal obligation to send their children to school,
including indigenous people. Cash transfers were not allocated on the
basis of ethnicity but on criteria of vulnerability, such as orphans,
vulnerable children, and others.
National policy on traditional knowledge and traditional cultural
expression had been developed, and the basic education curricula had
been reformed. The literacy rate of the population above the age of 15
was 75 per cent.
With regard to land issues, the delegation said that the law on lands
set out clear procedures for land ownership and use as well as
procedures for evictions which were fully in line with international
standards. There had been no evictions of people from traditional
lands lately. The community land act defined a community as a group of
citizens of Kenya who shared ancestry, culture, socio-economic
interests, geographic space or ethnicity; they had the right to own
land and the law provided for inventory and identification of that
land, its registration and the issuing of deeds, which would provide
security of ownership. There was no limit on the amount of land owned,
everyone could own any amount anywhere in the country.
The landlords amendment act 2016 provided for addressing of historical
land injustices. The law was not sufficient to implement the
recommendations of the Truth, Justice and Reconciliation Commission on
addressing historical land injustices, therefore a task force had been
established to develop the adequate legal framework, called the
historical injustices bill. The bill, which was now undergoing
consultations, provided for a comprehensive definition of ‘historical
injustices’, the period during which they occurred, namely from 15 June
1885, or the moment the protectorate had been established over Kenya,
until 27 August 2010, when the new Constitution had been adopted. The
law would also provide for the mechanism to submit grievances and offer
restitution.
There were no specific ethnicities in slums and informal settlements,
all sectors of the population were represented. The Government was
taking measures to issue slum dwellers with property deeds which would
provide them with security of tenure and thus support the formalization
of settlements.
The settlement of internally displaced persons had been carried out
by providing them with land or providing them with cash to buy land
where they wanted. All internally displaced persons had been
resettled. A fund had been set up for this purpose.
The hate speech act was being revised to expand the definition of
hate speech, and to align it with article 4 of the Convention and the
Constitution of Kenya, and also to make it ‘alive’ and more responsive
to the situation on the ground. The revised law included as hate
speech vilifying words, coded messages, the use of visual images that
depicted ethnic stereotyping and the wearing or display in clothing of
flags, emblems and insignia with an intention to incite or stir up
ethnic hatred and disrupt social cohesion. Punishment had been
increased from one to five million Kenyan shillings and prison
sentences from one to five years. A person found guilty of hate speech
would not be able to hold public office.
An e-platform had been developed to receive complaints of
discrimination. During the period under review, Kenya had received
1,240 complaints of hate speech of which 60 per cent had been
successfully investigated. Fifty complaints had been forwarded to
public prosecutions with a recommendation to prosecute, and 160 had
been resolved though secession notices; 36 cases were pending before
the courts. Several challenges were encountered in the investigation
or prosecution of complaints, including lack of awareness of the legal
framework, hostility towards the police investigating complaints, and
fear of witnesses to come forward and provide testimony.
Most people who engaged in hate speech were politicians or influential
people who had the means to engage lawyers to delay procedures through
injunctions by the High Court, which delayed court proceedings for as
long as five years.
The audit of civil service conducted in 2015 had revealed great
inequalities in the composition of public service and the overwhelming
representation of Kenya’s major ethnic groups such as Kikuyus, Luhyas
and Luo, which often led to the marginalization and exclusion of
minorities. Compliant notices had been issued to counties which did
not conform with the policy on ethnic diversity, and which required
them to put in place progressive plans to reduce the inequality of
ethnic representation.
The Media Council enforced guidelines on election reporting and the
broadcasting code; journalists were guided by the professional code of
conduct. The Media Council was an independent body which had an
independent unit, the Media Complaints Commission, which had received
101 complaints by end of 2016.
The legal aid act 2016 granted systematic legal aid, and it defined who legal aid providers were, i.e. advocates acting
pro bono or
any other civil society organization or any other institution
operating legal aid clinics. The act established national legal aid
service to implement the legal aid policy and administer the support to
legal aid providers, including training, and had also set up a legal
aid fund. One of the major goals of the national legal aid service was
to provide legal aid and support access to justice for marginalized
groups, and promote public interest litigation of concern to the
general public and marginalized groups.
One of the core mandates of the national human rights institution was
to receive complaints of human rights violations, so anyone who was
reluctant to file a complaint to the justice system could do so with the
national human rights institution. Furthermore, marginalized people
would have greater access to justice through alternative dispute
resolution mechanisms, which the justice system had embraced. Those
measures would also help reduce the backlog in the judiciary. To date,
there were 65 accredited mediators who had concluded 82 cases - 55
from the family division and the rest from the commercial division.
With regard to refugees, the delegation said that Kenya had started
to experience the massive arrival of refugees from the Horn of Africa
in the 1980s; following the large arrival of refugees from Ethiopia,
Sudan and Somalia in the 1990s, refugee camps had been set up closer to
the border, under the assumption that the refugee situation was a
temporary one and that refugees would soon go back to their country of
origin. Thus, camps were the prevailing mode of providing assistance
to new arrivals applied by the United Nations Refugee Agency and the
national government.
Kenya had pursued an open door policy to refugees, and all arrivals
were accorded refugee status without undergoing the harsh scrutiny
prescribed by the Refugee Convention and other international
instruments. This had exposed Kenya to security threats, particularly
with the rise of Al-Shabaab and other terrorist groups. Thus, refugees
were increasingly being seen not as humanitarian but as security
refugees. A directive had been adopted in 2013 which requested urban
refugees of Somali origins to return to Kikuma and Dabaab refugee
camps; the directive had been challenged in court which had found it
unconstitutional and a violation of refugee rights and the principle of
non-refoulement.
In 2014, a new order had been issued to close urban registration
centres and return 55,000 refugees living in town to refugee camps; the
court had upheld the new directive. Kenya was left all alone to care
for refugees, and given the improvement in the situation in Somalia and
Ethiopia, had ordered the closure of camps as it was deemed that
conditions were in place for the refugees to return. The court
decision on this order was being awaited. Alternative to camps was a
voluntary repatriation under the tripartite agreement between Somalia,
Kenya and the United Nations Refugee Agency; to date, more than 50,000
Somali refugees had returned.
Follow-up Questions from the Experts
In their follow-up questions and comments, Committee Experts inquired
about the intentions of Kenya concerning the recognition of the
competence of the Committee to receive individual communications, and
whether the definition of discrimination included national origins as a
ground for discrimination. Kenya should provide detailed and
disaggregated data on its ethnic composition and the educational,
economic and political achievements of each ethnicity.
Information was further requested on the implementation of
counter-terrorism laws and measures taken to bring legislation in line
with international standards, durable solutions for refugees, and the
definition of civil society.
Responses by the Delegation
Community engagement was the cornerstone of the successful
implementation of counter-terrorism activities, said the delegation, and
added that in the context of terrorist attacks that had occurred in
Kenya, the Government had been forced to look into some of the measures
put in place. Its legislation included safeguards and had received a
clean bill of health by the national human rights institution; there
were some weaknesses to address with regard to administrative measures
taken.
There were 8,500 civil society organizations in Kenya, employing
290,000 Kenyans representing about 2.1 per cent of Kenya’s economically
active population. All non-governmental organizations were registered
as long as they fulfilled the criteria laid down by the law.
Kenya was a monist State which required it to put in place legislation
and implementation mechanisms before ratifying a treaty; the public
consultations were ongoing on the recognition of the Committee’s
competence to receive individual communications.
The issues of race and national origin were included in the
definition of ethnicity and discrimination on those grounds was
prohibited. A mechanism was in place which offered redress for
discrimination.
Further Questions from the Experts and Responses by the Delegation
Kenya should consider redrawing ethnically determined county
boundaries as a precondition to start addressing historical injustices
and marginalization, and the delegation was asked how this could come
about.
The land laws intended to break-up large chunks of land owned by
people privileged by the colonial regimes – how would this be
implemented in practice, particularly considering that the 99 year
leases were coming to an end in five years. How would this land be
protected from being grabbed by cartels and private corporations in
which many politicians had a stake?
Responding, the delegation said that there were several housing
schemes through which the right to housing, which was a right enshrined
in the Constitution, was being progressively realized.
Once someone had a title deed to land, the ownership was protected
and could not be taken away without due process. The 99 year land
leases were up for renewal in five years; where the Government felt that
the lease could not be renewed, the land would be considered as public
and would be allocated to the landless for purposes of settlement.
There had been no sentences for cases of racial discrimination simply
because the adequate law was not there; this would change with the new
legal amendment which widened the definition and increased penalties and
sanctions.
The marriage act recognized only marriages between adults; child
marriages were not recognized, even under the customary law.
Concluding Remarks
NICOLÁS MARUGÁN, Committee Expert and Rapporteur for Kenya, noted the
efforts and steps taken to eliminate racial discrimination and urged
Kenya to fully respect the principle of non-refoulement with regard to
refugees and to increase budgetary allocations to its national human
rights institution.
MARYANN NJAU-KIMANI, Secretary, Justice and Constitutional Affairs,
Office of the Attorney General of Kenya, was encouraged by the
Committee’s recognition of its efforts to eliminate racial
discrimination and reiterated Kenya’s commitment to continuing to take
steps to ensure that its citizens were free from all forms of
discrimination.
ANASTASIA CRICKLEY, Committee Chairperson, thanked the delegation and
reassured the delegation that the Committee was committed to finding
the best way to conduct country reviews.
__________
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