Women and child protection
Coordination of protection activities at national level is challenging because different aspects of child protection are currently the responsibility of different government ministries and departments, and at times their mandates conflict. The only national survey on violence against children in Kenya dates to 2010 and suggests that 79 per cent of boys and 76 per cent of girls experience physical, sexual and/or emotional violence before the age of 18. Violence against children is also prevalent in all stages of the justice system: less information is available about private residential institutions for children and in boarding schools. In the 2014 Demographic and Health Survey (DHS), 14 per cent of women and six per cent of men aged 15-49 reported having experienced sexual violence at least once in their lifetimes.
While the government has developed and adopted policies, enacted laws, developed and implemented educational programmes to combat gender-based violence, response is constrained by the lack of human capacity for prevention and protection, entrenched religious and cultural beliefs that perpetuate negative stereotypes, discrimination and gender inequality, and socio-cultural norms around gender and masculinity. In Kenya and Uganda, marriage is illegal before the age of 18. However, child marriage is in practice accepted and recognized in many communities. The causes of child marriage include social economic factors, such as poverty, low education and the treatment of girls as economic assets. Capacity gaps among some police officers and court officials and cultural reluctance on the part of some community and religious leaders hamper efforts to delay marriage.
Approximately 3.6 million Kenyan children are orphans or otherwise classified as vulnerable. Of these, 646,887 children have lost both parents, while 2.6 million children have lost at least one parent (one million of these to AIDS). Other children are made vulnerable due to poverty, harmful cultural practices, family breakdown, abandonment, natural disasters, ethnic and political conflict, and/or poor care arrangements. Communities in Uganda and Kenya have traditionally responded to children without parental care by placing them informally in the care of extended family or community members. However, with increasing socio-economic pressures and weakening family structures, this kinship care mechanism is under threat and many children are at risk of maltreatment.