Reporting on sexual orientation and gender identities in Kenya a study of factors that influence ethical and legal decision-making by print media journalists

The coverage of sexual minority groups like the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) community by print media, tends to raise multiple legal and ethical questions for journalists in Kenya. This study sought to identify and explain the legal and ethical guidelines for print media journalists in Kenya, as well as the factors that influence journalists’ ethical decisions. These decisions are subject to legal restrictions, professional ethics, personal values, religious and cultural bias. This raises ethical and legal debates for journalists since a democratic society and free media – both of which are billed as cornerstones of Kenya’s constitution – uphold the voicing of personal and divergent opinions. How then do we eliminate perceived bias? The following were the objectives of the study: to establish the ethical and legal issues that emerged in the print media’s coverage of the petition by the LGBT to have sections 162 and 165 of the penal code repealed to decriminalise homosexuality in Kenya, to determine the ethical decisions and legal considerations by Kenyan print media journalists when covering LGBT topics and individuals, and to evaluate how journalists deal with ethical and legal issues that emerge when reporting on LGBT. The study adopted a mixed method approach in which both quantitative and qualitative data was collected. Because the study only sampled Nairobi- based court reporters and editors, a random sample of 25 journalists was drawn from the four mainstream newspapers in Kenya and the weekly The Nairobian. Quantitative data was collected using a semi-structured questionnaire, that was administered to 25 journalists, while qualitative data was collected through interviews with three key informants The findings of the study indicate that objectivity, fair coverage, religious bias, cultural bias, and personal bias are the main ethical issues that emerged during the coverage of the LGBT case. The legal issues that emerged in the coverage of the case were the right to privacy, human rights and dignity, discrimination, coverage of an issue that is illegal, seeking of consent from LGBT subjects and exposure to defamation and libel. The journalists indicated that though they might be influenced by religious, cultural, and personal biases, they deal with emerging ethical and legal issues by referring to their in- house editorial policies, the Media Council of Kenya code of conduct and their training in media law and ethics

Medical Translation: A Linguistic Form Slavery or Cultural Labyrinth?

The objective of this paper was to establish the applicability of Communicative and Semantic Approaches to finding cultural equivalences in translation of texts in the medical field. There are a number of contending approaches around the practice of translation. Translation of medical documents from English to Kiswahili face many challenges. The translatability of a text is dependent on a number of issues including linguistic and cultural features. Even though we recognize that there has been a shift over the years from a philological approach to a more pragmatic approach in translation, we do appreciate that a well translated text is the one that reflects as much as possible the Source Text (ST henceforth). There are several approaches to translation. In trying to understand whether translation is linguistic form slavery where a translator enslaves him/herself to the target text (TT henceforth) or a cultural labyrinth where a translator finds him/herself in cultural confusion, this study employed a translation approach proposed by Newmark (1981). We used secondary data which includes translation excerpts from content translated by ‘Translators Without Borders’ (TWB) which is an organization whose primary mandate is to translate medical texts from English to Standard Kiswahili. The analyzed data indicate that the communicative and the semantic approaches are not stand alone, but rather, are complimentary approaches in finding cultural equivalents in the translation of medical texts. Medical translations were viewed to violate off record and indirect strategies of keeping politeness in the text. This study was particularly important in trying find out the extent to which a translator can deviate from linguistic form while keeping cultural appropriateness. The study recommends a complementary usage of both the communicative and semantic approaches in medical translation. Moreover, the study further recommends that translators handling medical texts should not be enslaved to the linguistic forms of the ST since their audience is different from that of the ST. We opine that future research in the area of translation should focus on the aspect of politeness as a communicative aspect in many cultures and how it can be an impediment in the process of translation itself. Keywords: Translation, Source text (ST) and source language (SL), Target text (TT) and target language (TL), Communicative and Semantic Translation (CST), standard Kiswahili (Formal Kiswahili used in schools and official contexts in East Africa), Kiswahili is a bantu language and is the lingua franca used in East and Central Africa. Back translation and blind back translation

Pharmaceutical trade policies and access to medicines in Kenya

The implementation of the World Trade Organization (WTO) Trade Related Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPs) Agreement at the national level via pharmaceutical trade policies may adversely affect access to medicines especially in developing countries. Access to medicines is protected under many international and national instruments on the right to health including the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights (African Charter) as well as the Constitution of Kenya, 2010. The right to health norms on access to medicines require the full and effective use of all TRIPs Agreement flexibilities by developing countries as confirmed by the Doha Declaration on the TRIPs Agreement and Public Health (Doha Declaration), 2001. In this regard, access to medicines is affected by failure to provide for all the TRIPs Agreement flexibilities in pharmaceutical trade policies as well as the incorporation of TRIPs plus standards in trade policies including bilateral and multilateral free trade agreements (FTAs). In order to identify and mitigate on the potential adverse impacts of pharmaceutical trade policies on access to medicines, the mechanism of human rights impact assessment (HRIA) is needed. The HRIA can resolve beforehand the adverse impacts of pharmaceutical trade policies on access to medicines. However, the implementation of the HRIA or specifically the right to health impact assessment (RHIA) mechanism by developing countries including Kenya is rare. This study therefore explores, using mixed methodologies including desktop literature review and expert interviews with selected trade policy makers in Kenya, how HRIA may be utilised by the government in order to resolve the potential adverse impacts of pharmaceutical trade policies on access to medicines.Thesis (LLD)--University of Pretoria, 2018.Centre for Human RightsLLDUnrestricte

A Critical Discourse Analysis of Funeral Speeches in Kenya: A Case of Junior Odinga’s Speech

The objective of this paper was to critically analyze the political undertones and the socioeconomic allusions in the funeral speeches in Kenya with a case study of a speech delivered by Junior Odinga during the requiem mass for Fidel Odinga. This study employed Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA henceforth) by Norman Fairclough (1995), especially the assumption that texts are open to diverse interpretations. The purposefully selected corpus of the speech reveals that Fidel, as eulogized, lived in a very hash socio-political environment, yet he hailed from an economically able family. Most importantly, the study reveals that the deceased had two phases of life contrary to popular beliefs of the political elite in Kenya. What attracted this research is the urge to explore the dynamics of funeral speeches in the Kenyan context. This study found out that funeral speeches in Kenya are carefully crafted to carry very heavy social, economic and political undertones. Furthermore, the study established that funeral speeches in Kenya overlap the eulogy boundary and spills over to other spheres of life not only of the deceased but to the elite political class. The study recommends further research in the area of the concept of face and face threatening mitigation strategies in funeral discourse. In addition, this study recommends an in depth study of the contextual forces behind eulogy speeches in Kenya. Keywords: Political speech, political, discourse, funeral speech, Raila Odinga, Junior Odinga

Pharmaceutical trade policies and access to medicines in Kenya

The right to health requires the full integration of TRIPs Agreement flexibilities in pharmaceutical trade policies and the avoidance of TRIPsplus standards to safeguard access to medicines nationally. The article argues that a human rights impact assessment, and specifically a right to health impact assessment, may resolve beforehand the adverse impacts of pharmaceutical trade policies on access to medicines in Kenya. However, Kenya, as in many other developing countries, has not yet embraced the HRIA tool in its trade policy processes even though the theory and methodology of HRIA or RHIA exist. The key finding of the article is that many trade policy makers in Kenya are not adequately prepared in terms of their knowledge and attitude to implement the HRIA or RHIA as a routine process in trade.This article was prepared while the author was a doctoral student at the Centre for Human Rights, Faculty of Law, University of Pretoriahttp://www.ahrlj.up.ac.zahj2020Centre for Human Right

The Perception of Farmers on Climate Change and Variability Patterns in the Nzoia River Basin, Kenya

Global research experts have indicated that there is a growing trend in climate change and variability. Climate change has been altering the exposure of countries to weather related hazards, often exacerbating already existing vulnerabilities over the recent decades. Increasingly, the weather experienced then in terms of amounts of rainfall and temperature is no longer the same as it has always been over centuries based on previous records and scientific findings.   This paper sought to establish the perception of farmers on climate variability and patterns in the Nzoia River Basin, Kenya. The study adopted descriptive, and correlative research design. Data was collected using questionnaires, interview schedules and documented resource materials. The collected data was analyzed using Statistical Package for Social Scientists (SPSS) whereas climatic data of rainfall and temperature from Kenya Meteorological Service (KMS) and hectarage, and yield from the Ministry of Agriculture was analyzed using Microsoft excel. Results were presented in form of tables, charts and graphs. The study indicated that farmers had perceived an increase in temperature a decrease in rainfall, delay in onset of the rains, erratic and poor distribution of rainfall over the study period. The farmer’s perceptions on climate risk as a result of climate change and variability taking place in the basin has greatly influenced the cropping calendar, on-farm investments and decision-making in agricultural management and production negatively affecting yield of maize in the region.  The study recommends that the Government could help  to counteract the impact of climate change on agriculture by investing in research, soil conservation measures, technology, irrigation and water harvesting development, establishing local meteorology stations that will  give farmers relevant meteorological advice that will help them make informed farming options in each farming season. Keywords: Climate change, Climate variability, Perception, Weather

Neologism: A Narrowing or a Broadening Process, a Case of Sheng

This study is meant to test lexical pragmatic process of broadening using Sheng[1] data. Sheng is such an emotic language phenomenon that both linguists and non-linguists have grappled with for a long time. In this paper, Sheng is handled as a tool for communication used by the Kenyan youth in their daily interaction, all other contending views notwithstanding. It is also important to state from the onset that we handle Sheng from a functional grammar[2] point of view. This study employed a Lexical Pragmatics theory as proposed by Blutner (1998) and indeed many other scholars, who view neologism as a broadening process. In this study, we have a different view on neologism albeit. Thus, we argue that in fact neologism is a narrowing process in Sheng, according to the data on Sheng. Neologism here is used as defined by Crystal (2001) and Kate (2001)[3]. Data used in this paper was gathered through questionnaires issued to speakers of Sheng in Jericho Estate in the Eastland’s area of Nairobi. The data was later analyzed within lexical pragmatic theoretical framework. This study recommends a further investigation into the various seemingly dialectical variations of Sheng. Keywords: Broadening, narrowing, neologism, lexical pragmatics, word, Sheng [1] Considered as a youth jargon, code, language spoken by the youth in the urban settlements in Kenya. [2] A theory of grammar concerned with how the social, cognitive, and pragmatic functions of language relate to structure. [3] Crystal (2001) defines neologism as the creation of new lexical items in the languag

Exploring inclusiveness of vulnerable and marginalized people in the cassava value chain in the Lake Region, Kenya

Vulnerable and marginalised groups (VMGs) who comprise widows, orphans, people living with disability and HIV, have not been given sufficient attention in agriculture in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) by policy makers, development partners, research, and extension, yet they comprise nearly one-quarter of all smallholder farmers. This study explored inclusion of VMGs in cassava value chain in the Lake Region of Kenya. Formal survey, focus group discussions (FGD), and key informant interviews (KIIs) were used to collect data from VMGs, common interest groups (CIGs) and stakeholders in the cassava value chain. The results showed that the majority of VMG farmers were women, mainly widows, orphans, people living with HIV, and difficulty in mobility. Compared to CIGs, there were significant differences (P 0.05) in access to value chain support services.  Key barriers reinforcing marginalization were policy, socio economic and technological in nature.   It is argued that affirmative action that aims to reach the marginalised farmers and actors in cassava value chain should entail national and institutional policy frameworks to enhance visibility and involvement of VMGs in technology development and innovation as well as in the design and implementation of projects geared towards improving livelihoods of smallholder farmers. The findings of this study suggest the need for mapping and assessing VMGs for targeted value chain institutional support to access inputs, training, financing and market linkages in order to close gaps in cassava production and marketing.  It is concluded that the cassava value chain in the Lake Region is less inclusive for VMGs. Thus, the study recommends affirmative action and establishment of a platform for VMG farmers to increase their voice in decision making

Anti-counterfeiting and access to generic medicines in Kenya : reviewing Patricia Osero Ochieng & 2 Others v Attorney General (2012)

On April 20, 2012, the Kenyan High Court delivered a ground-breaking decision that will, inter alia, enhance national, regional and international efforts aimed at improving access to affordable and essential medicines, including generics for people living with HIV. Indeed, the Patricia Ochieng case has been described as ‘precedent-setting’ and a ‘trail-blazer’ by both activists and academicians insofar as access to generic medicines is concerned in the context of anti-counterfeiting legislations.http://reference.sabinet.co.za/sa_epublication/esrrevam2013ai201

Impacts of Organic and Conventional Management on the Nutritional Level of Vegetables

The nutrient concentration of fruits and vegetables in the U.S.A. has declined in the past 50–70 years. Crop management practices utilizing on-farm inputs are thought to increase crop nutritional quality, but few studies have evaluated this under long-term side-by-side trials. An experiment was conducted from 2004 to 2005 at Rodale Institute’s long-term Farming Systems Trial to investigate the nutritional quality of vegetables under organic manure (MNR) and conventional (CNV) farming systems, with or without arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) treatment. AMF reduced the vitamin C content in carrots in both systems in 2004, but the reduction was 87% in CNV and 28% in MNR. AMF also reduced antioxidants in carrots in both CNV and MNR. This trend was likely due to the suppression of native AMF colonization by the non-native AMF inoculum used. Between 2004 and 2005, MNR increased the vitamin C in green peppers by 50% while CNV decreased the vitamin C in red peppers by 48%. Tomatoes under MNR had a 40% greater vitamin C content compared to CNV in 2005. The vegetable yield declined between 2004 and 2005, except for tomato, where the yield increased by 51% and 44% under CNV and MNR, respectively. In general, MNR tended to increase the nutrient concentration of vegetables compared with CNV, while the AMF effects were inconclusive