Kenya is a patriarchal society, where the husband is the head of the household and women often have little influence in decisions affecting their lives. This extends to sexual relations, where woman are frequently unable to refuse to have sex with their husbands. Violence pervades the lives of many women.

The Economic and Social Council noted that poverty in general inhibited the full enjoyment of human rights and that the situation where women had unequal access to resources ensured continuing discrimination.(27) In Kenya, customarily women do not own property or the land they work, which causes them economic hardship and places them in positions of dependence. Yet Article 15 of the The Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) requires state parties to give women equal rights to administer property.

Although international human rights standards guarantee equal access of males and females to property, according to customary practices women do not inherit property from their parents or husbands as property ownership generally follows a male lineage.(31) In some communities, when a man dies, his relatives disinherit his widow and children, leaving them without property or means to sustain themselves. In Kenya, there have been cases brought to court by widows trying to reclaim property from their husband's family, but in some instances they have been unable to prove that they were legally married and therefore have a legal right to the property. In many cases it is reported that women, and their children, have found themselves homeless.

Forced marriage is customary in some communities, contravening Article 16 of the CEDAW which guarantees, on the basis of equality of men and women, the same right to freely choose a spouse and to enter into marriage only with free and full consent. On the death of her husband, a woman is ''inherited'' by his brother or close relative. The woman's consent to this new marriage or to sexual relations with her new ''husband'' is not sought. The community uses the custom to further discriminate against women and entrench their secondary position in society.

For many women who are forced into a new marriage there is the added worry of the health risks associated with the marriage. ''Inherited'' women may become infected with HIV and eventually die of AIDS, leaving children orphaned. As a Kenyan social worker remarked in an interview with the media, ''People have not yet accepted the fact of AIDS, even though people are dying. If a woman refuses to be inherited, nobody will shake her hand.''(33)

Gender-based violence not only exposes women to sexually transmitted diseases, but also to the risk of acquiring HIV/AIDS. The high levels of HIV in the population mean that sexual violence against women and children carries a significant risk of transmission of the virus and of subsequent illness and death.(34) As the Women's Rights Awareness Programme (WRAP), a Kenyan women's human rights organization, told Amnesty International, ''Women have forced sex, and are scared of catching something. They say that they are scared because the husband...also comes to have forced sex with her. These women...[are] especially from the slum areas where husbands are sick and they insist on having sex, and the women can tell there is a possibility of contracting HIV/AIDS.''

Women who have been infected with HIV find it difficult to share this important information with their partner because of fear of aggression. According to a survey conducted by the Kenyan Population Council in 2001, more than half of the women surveyed who knew they had acquired HIV said they had not disclosed their HIV status to their partners because they feared it would expose them to violence or abandonment.(35) There is also a reported pattern of abuse by men who target minors for sex in the belief that they are less likely to be infected with the HIV/AIDS virus. Men infected with HIV/AIDS have reportedly raped young girls under the illusion that they will be ''cleansed'' by having sex with a virgin.

Source: Amnesty International http://web.amnesty.org/library/Index/engAFR320012002?OpenDocument&of=THEMES%5CWOMEN