Rape in the Courts of Gusiiland, Kenya, 1940s–1960s

Abstract

This article examines the history of rape prosecutions in the African courts of Gusiiland, Kenya, from the 1940s through the first years of independence. Drawing on transcripts from African courts, it demonstrates that Gusii court elders were quite sympathetic to women who lodged rape claims. Elders handed down stiff punishments to rapists, were willing to entertain a wide definition of "indecent assault," and did not require the extensive evidence of rape so commonly demanded by judges in Western courts (and in British courts in Kenya). Perhaps most surprisingly, men who admitted to having had sex but claimed it had been consensual were forced to prove their claims. This article advances both the historical study of rape in Africa and suggests that we reassess-or at least reserve judgment-on the nature of sexual violence in the non-West.

The Prosecution of Rape in Wartime: Evidence from the Mau Mau Rebellion, Kenya 1952–60

“…56 This separation of economic and moral aspects must be questioned for many parts of Africa, and Brett Shadle has provided compelling evidence from another part of Kenya, Gusiiland, to indicate that this was not invariably true even within colonial Kenya. 57 Social remedies might combine both economic and moral aspects. Historian Tabitha Kanogo describes rape and other forms of sexual assault as having known and wellunderstood social remedies within Kikuyu society, both economic and moral, imposed through community sanction against those who infringed the accepted norms.…”