Kenyan Advocates Call for Stronger Laws to Protect Refugee Women
Nairobi, 28 July 2026
The Refugee Consortium of Kenya has urged Parliament to adopt stronger, gender-responsive laws, addressing critical safety gaps and systemic legal barriers faced by displaced and host-community women.
A High-Level Push for Legal Reform
The Refugee Consortium of Kenya (RCK), alongside the Kenya Women Parliamentary Association (KEWOPA), the Gender Violence Recovery Centre (GVRC), the National Gender and Equality Commission (NGEC), the State Department for Gender Affairs, and Nairobi County, recently convened a high-level advocacy dialogue under the ‘Haki na Ushirikiano Project’ [1]. Supported by the Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands and in collaboration with the Kenya National Commission on Human Rights (KNCHR), the dialogue prioritised the reform and implementation of key legal frameworks, including the Refugees Act (2021), the Sexual Offences Act (2006), and the Prohibition of Female Genital Mutilation Act (2011) [1]. These reforms are particularly critical for Turkana County, which hosts both the Kakuma refugee camp—a traditional camp structure established in 1992 to provide basic humanitarian aid—and the Kalobeyei integrated settlement, which was established in 2015 to promote self-reliance and socio-economic integration between refugees and the host community [1][GPT].
Synergies in SGBV Legislative Review
The push for legal reform by RCK aligns with broader civil society efforts across Kenya to strengthen accountability and survivor-centred justice. On 27 July 2026, the Wangu Kanja Foundation announced its active collaboration with the National Council on the Administration of Justice (NCAJ) Committee on the Review of Laws and Policies on Sexual and Gender-Based Violence (SGBV) [4]. The foundation’s drafting team is contributing directly to proposed amendments to the Sexual Offences Act, aiming to advance survivor-centred laws, enhance accountability, and significantly improve access to justice for vulnerable individuals [4].
Bridging the Gap with Local Peace Systems
In remote borderlands like Turkana County and the Moyale border region between Kenya and Ethiopia, formal state institutions are often physically distant, leaving communities to rely on traditional mediation led by elders and peace committees [5]. While community-based Conflict Prevention Management Resolution (CPMR) programmes—supported by the Conflict Early Warning and Response Mechanism’s (CEWARN) Rapid Response Fund—help manage local disputes, they suffer from notable limitations [5]. Traditional systems frequently exclude women and youth, lack formal legal recognition, and struggle to address serious crimes such as human trafficking or gender-based violence, reinforcing the critical need for the formal, gender-responsive legal frameworks advocated by the RCK [1][5].