Nature of the Case
The High Court of Kenya ruled that women living with Human Immuno-deficiency Virus (HIV) have equal reproductive health rights under the Kenyan Constitution and laws, and that performing a sterilization procedure on a patient with HIV without her informed consent is discrimination based on sex, gender, and HIV-status, violating Article 27 of the Constitution. The Court also held that health care providers have a duty to obtain informed consent for medical procedures, except in cases of emergency, and that consent cannot be transferred from one health facility to another. In so ruling, the Court found that two medical providers violated the constitutional rights of the Petitioner in this case, a young woman with a HIV-positive diagnosis, when they failed to inform and obtain consent before she underwent a bilateral tubal ligation that left her permanently unable to bear children.