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Kenyan woman takes on constitutionality of wife-beating
October 13, 1997
Web posted at: 11:47 p.m. EDT (0347 GMT)KAJIADO, Kenya (CNN) -- A Kenyan woman is taking on more than the system -- she's taking on the accepted tradition of wife-beating.
After 13 years of marriage that included many beatings and at least one hospital trip, Agnes Siyiankoi decided she'd had enough.
She left her husband and took three of her four children to her brother's home in the Kenyan capital of Nairobi.
Maasai tradition holds that women are property, and Kenya's constitution says that customs can be practiced as long as they are moral and keep within the country's written law.
Now, Siyiankoi's brother, Nairobi lawyer Keriako Tobiko, has lodged a High Court application seeking the equivalent of $150 in damages and a declaration that wife-beating should be unconstitutional among Maasai.
Siyiankoi has accused her husband in court of assault. Her husband, who is due to appear in court in the town of Kajiado, left a recent court appearance without commenting on the allegations.
Cases of domestic assault against women have been brought to Kenyan courts before. What makes this one different is the approach taken by Tobiko.
"The issue of the relationship between the assailant and the victim is normally not emphasized in these other cases," Tobiko says.
"What we have done here is to bring out quite clearly, very vigorously, the fact that now the person who has been assaulted is the wife of the assailant," he says.
Siyiankoi says her husband beat her constantly and that polygamy led him to beat her. Her husband has one other wife. Siyiankoi's father married her off at age 18 in exchange for three cows.
Women lawyers have delivered a series of recommendations to Kenya's attorney general calling for reforms that would specifically outlaw wife-beating and marital rape.
They say wife-beating is immoral and unjust and that there's an urgent need to criminalize it because even men who beat their wives to death are not being prosecuted.
However, they say that all too often, the government response is that these are the concerns of educated women and don't represent ordinary women's views.
"It comes from a wide cross-section of the society," says Millie Odhiambo of the International Federation of Women Lawyers. "You would certainly find that almost every tribe in Kenya practices wife-beating."
Changing attitudes are a help, but lawyers say this case could mark a concrete step toward legislation making wife-beating a thing of the past.
Nairobi Bureau Chief Catherine Bond contributed to this report.
Related stories:
- UNICEF: Abuse of women pervasive worldwide - July 22, 1997
- Domestic abuse: Russia's tragic, hidden secret - March 7, 1997
- South Africa copes with skyrocketing rape, abuse rates - February 23, 1997
- Ghastly domestic abuse: burning women - February 10, 1997
Related sites:
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- United Nations Children's Fund: The Progress of Nations 1997 - a report that ranks nations according to their achievements in child health, nutrition, education, family planning, and progress for women.
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