This archive report was first published on 10 July 2019.
On July 10, 2019, Kenya's High Court made a significant ruling in an inheritance dispute that has sparked debate on the rights of children born to widows.
According to the court's decision, children born to a widow more than nine months after her husband's death are not entitled to inherit his property. This ruling was made by Justice Lucy Gitari in a case involving Ms. Milka Wanjiku and her step-mother Ms. Rose Wangechi.
The dispute centered around the estate left behind by Wandimu Munyi, who died in 1985. Munyi was the father of Wanjiku and the husband of Wangechi. Wangechi wanted three other children she had after Munyi's death to be included in the list of beneficiaries of the deceased's estate.
However, Justice Gitari ruled that these children should be excluded from the inheritance as they did not survive the deceased and were not considered dependents of the deceased's estate. The judge also stated that the deceased had not taken these children as his own and was not maintaining them before he died.
As a result, the estate was ordered to be shared in five equal portions among the four children Munyi sired before his death, with the fifth portion belonging to Wangechi, the widow. Justice Gitari ruled that the distribution should be in accordance with the number of children, with the widow being an additional unit.
