Ascent of Women Read Online Free PDF

Kenyan constitution. It’s the Kenyan state that signed on to international, regional and domestic equality provisions and it’s therefore their obligation to protect the girls. Only the state can provide the remedies we’re looking for, which is the safety and security of the girls.”
    Sampson and other human rights lawyers in Canada have done this successfully for approximately twenty-five years since the introduction of Section 15, the equality provision of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Their track record includes considerable success with precedent-setting cases that establish the state’s responsibility to protect the rights of Canadian women. One of them was a case in Toronto in 1986 involving a woman raped by a man referred to as the Balcony Rapist, who was targeting the women of one downtown neighbourhood, gaining access to their bedrooms by breaking in through second- and third-floor balconies in the dark of night. The woman, who calls herself Jane Doe, sued the police, claiming it was their responsibility to warn the potential targets of the Balcony Rapist and thereby protect them. The police tried to have her case dismissed using the argument that if they warned the potential targets, it would have tipped off the rapist. But Jane Doe argued that the Toronto police used her as bait to draw out the predator. Her courage and dogged determination turned her case into a cause célèbre . In 1998 she won.
    Mary Eberts, who is working on the Kenyan girls’ suit, explains the connection between the two cases: “The police knew about this guy, they knew about his method of operation, and they knew where in the city the women he liked to target would be living, but they did not warn those women about the potentialdanger they were in. Jane Doe was raped by this guy, as the police might have predicted. She brought this case, which we are using as a precedent in the 160 girls’ litigation, to say there is a duty on the part of the police to enforce the law—that’s why the law is there. And if the police do not enforce the law, if the government does not enforce the law, then they are guilty of violating a person’s equality.”
    Eberts knows that the stars need to be aligned for precedent-setting cases to work. Her colleague Winnie Kamau, a law professor at the University of Nairobi, says a case like this couldn’t have happened even a few years ago. “I think the timing is actually quite perfect, particularly in the Kenyan context,” Kamau says. “We have a new constitution that was enacted in August 2010, and in the last half dozen years we have had some very progressive laws passed in our country. Five years ago it would have been difficult to bring everybody together, but the timing now I believe is right. There’s also a lot more awareness among African women about their rights, and they have the feeling, the sense that they need to change. We can harness these energies.”
    The new Kenyan constitution contains powerful provisions that provide for increased equality for women and girls, provisions that have not yet been interpreted by the country’s courts. This is precisely where the Canadian courts were twenty-five years ago when the Charter of Rights and Freedoms was enacted. New laws must be tested and interpreted in the courts. Reflecting on their own experience with Charter challenges, the Canadian lawyers see this case as an opportunity to ensure that the courts interpret and apply constitutional provisions in ways that guarantee the human rights of women and girls. The process is time-consuming and expensive, but it’s the best way to establishprecedents that the courts can rely on for future cases. The Three to Be Free activists plan to take similar action in Malawi and Ghana once this case is won.
    Historically, when you alter the status of one woman, you alter the status of her family. When a girl is confident and knows what her rights are, she knows what she can claim from the state and