Publication: Key Ingredients to Women’s Legal Rights in Kenya
Loading...
Published
2022-03-24
ISSN
Date
2022-08-02
Editor(s)
Abstract
Legislative reforms to increase gender equality before the law are often long and complex processes. This brief focuses on a series of reforms in Kenya, specifically, the adoption of the Sexual Offenses Act of 2006, the Employment Act of 2007, and the Protection Against Domestic Violence Act of 2015. Strong evidence, broad coalitions, and incorporating the highest standards based on international best practice in early legal drafts are singled out as the key elements that led to the successful adoption of these landmark laws promoting women’s rights in Kenya. The lessons in this brief can provide important insights for policy makers, advocacy groups and international organizations involved in the pursuit of legal gender equality in Kenya and other countries.
Link to Data Set
Citation
“Githae, Catherine Nyaguthii; Galiano, Emilia; Nyagah, Fredrick J.K.; Recavarren, Isabel Santagostino. 2022. Key Ingredients to Women’s Legal Rights in Kenya. Series: Global Indicators Briefs;No. 5. © World Bank. http://hdl.handle.net/10986/37815 License: CC BY 3.0 IGO.”
Digital Object Identifier
Associated URLs
Associated content
Other publications in this report series
Journal
Journal Volume
Journal Issue
Collections
Related items
Showing items related by metadata.
Publication Strengthening Economic Rights and Women's Occupational Choice : The Impact of Reforming Ethiopia's Family Law(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2013-11)This paper evaluates the impact of strengthening legal rights on the types of economic opportunities that are pursued. Ethiopia changed its family law, requiring both spouses' consent in the administration of marital property, removing the ability of a spouse to deny permission for the other to work outside the home, and raising women's minimum age of marriage. Thus both access to resources and the removal of restrictions on employment served to strengthen women's bargaining position within the household and their ability to pursue economic opportunities. Although this reform now applies nationally, it was initially rolled out in the two chartered cities and three of Ethiopia's nine regions. Using nationally representative household surveys from just prior to the reform and five years later allows for a difference-in-difference estimation of the reform's impact. The analysis finds that women were relatively more likely to work in occupations that require work outside the home, employ more educated workers, and in paid and full-time jobs where the reform had been enacted, controlling for time and location effects. As the relative increase in women's participation in these activities was 15-24 percent higher in areas where the reform was carried out, the magnitude of the impact is significant too.Publication The Illusion of Inclusion : Women's Access to Rights in Northern Kenya(World Bank, Nairobi, 2008-12)This paper shows how official laws concerning justice for women, can be difficult to apply when they are not socially acknowledged, contextualized, or received, and therefore have minimal impact on women's lives. It demonstrates that the inclusion of women through international conventions, domestic legal reform, and gender quotas in participatory processes, is illusory. While these are all important instruments in women's empowerment, the paper calls upon access to justice practitioners and policy makers to place equal emphasis on fostering the practical implementation of laws and to emphasize opportunities for increased equality in informal systems.Publication Collective Action and Women's Agency : A Background Paper(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2013)Following the findings and policy messages of the World Development Report (WDR) on gender equality and development 2012, the World Bankapos;s gender and development group are seeking to deepen the evidence base on promoting womenapos;s agency as a basis for enhanced action on gender equality. A component of this work is a review of evidence on the relationship between collective action and womenapos;s agency: whether and how different forms of collective action enhance womenapos;s ability to exercise agency in key domains and the operational implications for Bank policies and programs. The paper seeks to clarify the conceptual terrain of collective action; identify the links with womenapos;s agency; and draw lessons from the evidence on what works and what does not for boosting development and gender-equality outcomes. It draws attention on the somewhat smaller body of empirical research examining the mechanics of collective action and its links with economic and social wellbeing, particularly within developing societies. The findings are complex, but the overall conclusions are consistent with an emerging body of literature now questioning participation as a silver bullet in development and calling for more flexible, context-sensitive approaches for promoting agency, and empowerment.Publication Engaging Men and Boys in Advancing Women's Agency : Where We Stand and New Directions(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2013-11)Despite advances in gender equality, women and girls still face disadvantages and limits on their agency. Men and boys can be key stakeholders and allies to increase women's agency. This paper focuses on examining men's attitudes and behaviors related to gender equality and violence perpetration to better understand how to engage men and boys as. It uses data collected from men and women from eight countries (Bosnia, Brazil, Chile, Croatia, Democratic Republic of Congo, India, Mexico, and Rwanda) as part of the International Men and Gender Equality Survey (IMAGES). There is wide variation across countries in men's support for gender equality, equal roles for men and women, and acceptability of violence against women. Key findings of this investigation include: 1) that in most countries male perpetrators of violence are more likely to be depressed or engage in binge drinking than non-perpetrators; 2) that witnessing one's mother being abused by a partner is one of the strongest predictors of ever perpetrating violence, suggesting that efforts should focus on breaking the intergenerational transmission of norms and violence; 3) that being involved with violent fights generally is a significant predictor of ever perpetrating violence, suggesting that programs and policies reducing violence generally may also have an effect on violence specifically against women; and 4) that a majority of men is willing to intervene upon witnessing violence against a woman, and men who do not support violence against women, are not violent generally, and who are aware of laws prohibiting violence against women are more likely to intervene.Publication Women’s Legal Rights over 50 Years : What Is the Impact of Reform?(World Bank, Washington, D.C., 2013-09)This study uses a newly compiled database of women's property rights and legal capacity covering 100 countries over 50 years to test for the impact of legal reforms on employment, health, and education outcomes for women and girls. The database demonstrates gender gaps in the ability to access and own property, sign legal documents in one's own name, and have equality or non-discrimination as a guiding principle of the country's constitution. In the initial period, 75 countries had gender gaps in at least one of these areas and often multiple ones. By 2010, 57 countries had made reforms that strengthened women's economic rights, including 28 countries that had eliminated all of the constraints monitored here. In the cross-section and within countries over time, the removal of gender gaps in rights is associated with greater participation of women in the labor force, greater movement out of agricultural employment, higher rates of women in wage employment, lower adolescent fertility, lower maternal and infant mortality, and higher female educational enrollment. This paper provides evidence on how the strengthening of women's legal rights is associated with important development outcomes.
Users also downloaded
Showing related downloaded files
Publication Argentina Country Climate and Development Report(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2022-11)The Argentina Country Climate and Development Report (CCDR) explores opportunities and identifies trade-offs for aligning Argentina’s growth and poverty reduction policies with its commitments on, and its ability to withstand, climate change. It assesses how the country can: reduce its vulnerability to climate shocks through targeted public and private investments and adequation of social protection. The report also shows how Argentina can seize the benefits of a global decarbonization path to sustain a more robust economic growth through further development of Argentina’s potential for renewable energy, energy efficiency actions, the lithium value chain, as well as climate-smart agriculture (and land use) options. Given Argentina’s context, this CCDR focuses on win-win policies and investments, which have large co-benefits or can contribute to raising the country’s growth while helping to adapt the economy, also considering how human capital actions can accompany a just transition.Publication Lebanon Economic Monitor, Fall 2022(Washington, DC, 2022-11)The economy continues to contract, albeit at a somewhat slower pace. Public finances improved in 2021, but only because spending collapsed faster than revenue generation. Testament to the continued atrophy of Lebanon’s economy, the Lebanese Pound continues to depreciate sharply. The sharp deterioration in the currency continues to drive surging inflation, in triple digits since July 2020, impacting the poor and vulnerable the most. An unprecedented institutional vacuum will likely further delay any agreement on crisis resolution and much needed reforms; this includes prior actions as part of the April 2022 International Monetary Fund (IMF) staff-level agreement (SLA). Divergent views among key stakeholders on how to distribute the financial losses remains the main bottleneck for reaching an agreement on a comprehensive reform agenda. Lebanon needs to urgently adopt a domestic, equitable, and comprehensive solution that is predicated on: (i) addressing upfront the balance sheet impairments, (ii) restoring liquidity, and (iii) adhering to sound global practices of bail-in solutions based on a hierarchy of creditors (starting with banks’ shareholders) that protects small depositors.Publication Classroom Assessment to Support Foundational Literacy(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-03-21)This document focuses primarily on how classroom assessment activities can measure students’ literacy skills as they progress along a learning trajectory towards reading fluently and with comprehension by the end of primary school grades. The document addresses considerations regarding the design and implementation of early grade reading classroom assessment, provides examples of assessment activities from a variety of countries and contexts, and discusses the importance of incorporating classroom assessment practices into teacher training and professional development opportunities for teachers. The structure of the document is as follows. The first section presents definitions and addresses basic questions on classroom assessment. Section 2 covers the intersection between assessment and early grade reading by discussing how learning assessment can measure early grade reading skills following the reading learning trajectory. Section 3 compares some of the most common early grade literacy assessment tools with respect to the early grade reading skills and developmental phases. Section 4 of the document addresses teacher training considerations in developing, scoring, and using early grade reading assessment. Additional issues in assessing reading skills in the classroom and using assessment results to improve teaching and learning are reviewed in section 5. Throughout the document, country cases are presented to demonstrate how assessment activities can be implemented in the classroom in different contexts.Publication World Development Report 2006(Washington, DC, 2005)This year’s Word Development Report (WDR), the twenty-eighth, looks at the role of equity in the development process. It defines equity in terms of two basic principles. The first is equal opportunities: that a person’s chances in life should be determined by his or her talents and efforts, rather than by pre-determined circumstances such as race, gender, social or family background. The second principle is the avoidance of extreme deprivation in outcomes, particularly in health, education and consumption levels. This principle thus includes the objective of poverty reduction. The report’s main message is that, in the long run, the pursuit of equity and the pursuit of economic prosperity are complementary. In addition to detailed chapters exploring these and related issues, the Report contains selected data from the World Development Indicators 2005‹an appendix of economic and social data for over 200 countries. This Report offers practical insights for policymakers, executives, scholars, and all those with an interest in economic development.Publication Digital Africa(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2023-03-13)All African countries need better and more jobs for their growing populations. "Digital Africa: Technological Transformation for Jobs" shows that broader use of productivity-enhancing, digital technologies by enterprises and households is imperative to generate such jobs, including for lower-skilled people. At the same time, it can support not only countries’ short-term objective of postpandemic economic recovery but also their vision of economic transformation with more inclusive growth. These outcomes are not automatic, however. Mobile internet availability has increased throughout the continent in recent years, but Africa’s uptake gap is the highest in the world. Areas with at least 3G mobile internet service now cover 84 percent of Africa’s population, but only 22 percent uses such services. And the average African business lags in the use of smartphones and computers as well as more sophisticated digital technologies that catalyze further productivity gains. Two issues explain the usage gap: affordability of these new technologies and willingness to use them. For the 40 percent of Africans below the extreme poverty line, mobile data plans alone would cost one-third of their incomes—in addition to the price of access devices, apps, and electricity. Data plans for small- and medium-size businesses are also more expensive than in other regions. Moreover, shortcomings in the quality of internet services—and in the supply of attractive, skills-appropriate apps that promote entrepreneurship and raise earnings—dampen people’s willingness to use them. For those countries already using these technologies, the development payoffs are significant. New empirical studies for this report add to the rapidly growing evidence that mobile internet availability directly raises enterprise productivity, increases jobs, and reduces poverty throughout Africa. To realize these and other benefits more widely, Africa’s countries must implement complementary and mutually reinforcing policies to strengthen both consumers’ ability to pay and willingness to use digital technologies. These interventions must prioritize productive use to generate large numbers of inclusive jobs in a region poised to benefit from a massive, youthful workforce—one projected to become the world’s largest by the end of this century.