Githu told to clarify the law on intersex
What you need to know:
- In the case, a mother accused Kenyatta National Hospital (KNH) of refusing to register her baby who was born four years ago with both the male and female genitalia.
- She accused the hospital of inserting a column in the birth registration documents with a question mark (?) thereby preventing her child from being registered.
- “It has become problematic for intersex children to be registered because the form only provides for male and female sex makers. The said provision denied an inter-sex child the right to legal recognition,” he said.
The Attorney-General, has been given 90 days to give a report on the law regulating the intersexuals, their sexual category and procedures for conducting corrective surgery.
Justice Isaac Lenaola in addition obliged Prof Githu Muigai to provide the court with detailed information relating to the organ, agency or institution responsible for collecting and keeping data on intersex persons.
In the case, a mother accused Kenyatta National Hospital (KNH) of refusing to register her baby who was born four years ago with both the male and female genitalia.
She accused the hospital of inserting a column in the birth registration documents with a question mark (?) thereby preventing her child from being registered.
The mother said the insertion of that mark on the medical and treatment notes offended the child’s rights to legal recognition, erodes human dignity and violates the right not to be subjected to inhuman and degrading treatment.
PROBLEMATIC
Lawyer John Chigiti representing the infant stated that in Kenya, legal recognition is achieved through issuing statutory documents such as a birth slip and a birth certificate.
“It has become problematic for intersex children to be registered because the form only provides for male and female sex makers. The said provision denied an inter-sex child the right to legal recognition,” he said.
The refusal by the hospital to issue the baby with a birth certificate, he said, hindered the child’s life and development as it is the ticket to schools, issuing a passport, national identity card and employment, and without such documentation a child’s right is violated.
“Corrective surgery for inter-sex children is not necessary. Forced genital normalisation, involuntary sterilisation, unethical experimentation, reparative or conversion therapies often lead to irreversible changes to the body and interferes with a child’s right to family and reproductive health rights generally,” the lawyer said.
