Losing a spouse is the first loss. For many widowed Kenyans, particularly women, a second follows within weeks: the family home, the land, the business, the bank account, the children’s school fees, and the standing to object to any of it. The law provides for succession. Practice frequently does not.
The Commission, working with NAFRIWA, Laiser Insurance, the Gender Violence Recovery Centre and the Wangu Kanja Foundation, convened a Dialogue and Public Education Forum on the Rights of Widowed Persons at Kayole Social Hall in Nairobi, under the theme Promoting the Rights, Dignity, Well-being and Access to Justice for Widowed Persons.
The forum was built as a space in which widowed persons could set out their own experience and concerns directly to the institutions holding the relevant mandates, rather than have those experiences reported on their behalf. Discussion covered legal rights, inheritance and succession, property rights, access to justice, the prevention of and response to gender-based violence, survivor-centred support, healthcare and referral pathways.
The Commission ran a Complaint Handling Desk at the venue, at which participants registered complaints, reported violations and received guidance on the redress mechanisms open to them. A
free medical desk provided basic health screening and information on available services. The forum also addressed mental health and psychosocial well-being, in recognition of the emotional and social pressure that bereavement and dispossession place on a household.
The desk is the part of this that deserves attention. Public education tells a person that a right exists. A complaints desk in the same hall converts that knowledge into a filed matter on the same afternoon, before the practical obstacles reassert themselves: the fare to town, the day’s lost earnings, the relative who advises against making
trouble. The distance between knowing a right and claiming it is where most claims are lost, and it is usually measured in logistics rather than in law.
The Commission and its partners will continue to strengthen protection, dignity, access to justice and inclusion for widowed persons in Kenya.
The distance between knowing a right and claiming it is where most claims are lost, and it is usually measured in logistics rather than in law.
