COMPARATIVE OVERVIEW OF THE CONSTITUTIONAL PROMOTION, PROTECTION AND ENFORCEMENT OF WOMEN'S RIGHTS IN NIGERIAAND KENYA

Abstract

In undertaking a comparative overview of promotion, protection and enforcement of women's rights in Nigeria and Kenya, the doctrinal research method was adopted to examine relevant international instruments on women's rights and specific provisions of the national Constitutions and laws of both countries. Critical analysis and comparisons exposed that unlike Kenya, where women's rights are clearly protected under the Kenya Constitution, 2010, there is weak and uncoordinated protection and implementation regime for women's rights in Nigeria. It was noted that this dismal record of protection of women's rights exists in Nigeria notwithstanding that the principles of equality of all human beings and the omnibus principle of non-discrimination on account of sex that are engraved in the International Bill of Rights and its Optional Protocols, the African Charter and the Maputo Protocol on the Rights of Women all apply to both Nigeria and Kenya. While Kenya has a robust, clear and progressive constitutional provision for protection and enforcement of women's rights that guarantees affirmative actions which include that not more than two- thirds of the members of elective public bodies shall be of the same gender, the same cannot be said of Nigeria. It was suggested among other things that the Nigerian Constitution should be amended to adopt the Kenyan model of protection and implementation or enforcement of women's rights