April 3, 2018//-Kenya has been singled out as one of the four top countries in the world to have improved women’s legal rights, according to a new World Bank report.
The report, ‘Business and the Law 2018’, says that four African economies were among the top five in the world to carry out multiple reforms during the past two years.
Kenya, Tanzania, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Zambia collectively carried out 13 reforms in the past two years to remove legal barriers to women’s economic inclusion, the report says.
These reforms were among a total of 34 reforms carried out throughout Sub-Saharan Africa, which accounted for one-third of all reforms carried out globally.
Kenya reforms included its first domestic violence law, which protects family members, current and former spouses and partners from physical, sexual, psychological and economic abuse.
Kenya also now provides legal aid in civil matters and it has improved access to credit information by distributing data from two utility companies that report positive and negative payment information.
Legal barriers
However, women continue to face widespread legal barriers in Sub-Saharan Africa and other parts of the world, that keep them out of jobs and prevent them from owning a business, says the report, which now monitors 189 economies globally, including 47 in Sub-Saharan Africa.
It also says that protecting women against violence remains a challenge for the region, despite recent progress.
Of the world’s 45 economies with no laws against domestic violence, 19 are in Sub-Saharan Africa,
“Progress in Sub-Saharan Africa is heartening. Despite the myriad challenges facing the region, many governments are working to rescind laws, often holdovers from the colonial era, that discriminate against women.
“We believe that if you change the law, you change the world and we look forward to recording further progress on women’s economic inclusion in Sub-Saharan Africa,” said Sarah Iqbal, Program Manager of the Women, Business and the Law project.
By businessdailyafrica.com
