Kenya passes laws to fight "epidemic of rape."
NAIROBI (Reuters) - Kenya has passed new laws intended to stem the country's "epidemic of rape" and other sexual offences but women's rights groups expressed outrage on Thursday saying protections for married women were dropped.
One woman is raped every 30 seconds in Kenya, according to the government, and the local media regularly run stories of fathers violating small daughters, sometimes leaving them dead.
Kenya's outdated rape laws were introduced in 1930 under British colonial rule and have changed little since.
After months of debate and controversy, including walk outs by women parliamentarians, Kenya passed its first sexual offences law late on Wednesday introducing sentences from five years to life in prison for sex offenders.
The new law also introduced offences for child prostitution, sex tourism and trafficking, which had previously not been outlined in law.
Five years. Hmm. They also left some other important offenses out of the bill:
"It is not what we bargained for. We were not happy with the removal of female circumcision and marital rape from the bill," Jane Onyango, chair of the International Federation of Women Lawyers, told Reuters.
It's astounding when one considers how much money our government, the British government, international agencies and Hollywood bleeding hearts just dump into these corrupt governments, somehow more than wishfully thinking that giving thugs money will filter down to starving, kidnapped children and AIDS babies.
The rest of the story is here.
For all our legal system's faults, this certainly makes one happy to live in America.
Actually, we're catching up. The latest in outrageous judicial decisions belongs to Nebraska's Cheyenne County District Judge Kristine Cecava; she gave a man convicted of sexually assaulting a 12-year-old ten years of probation instead of ten years of prison time. Why? Because she said he was too short for prison (5'1") and would be endangered if placed there.
Posted by: Dee at June 1, 2006 07:27 AMI must say, for me it isn't so much that I'm happy to be living in America as it is that I'm happy I'm not living 'over there.' And I say that as someone who's lived 'over there.' Cheers.
Posted by: Muzzy at June 1, 2006 06:01 PM
