Hence, the extent of gender involvement, particularly among women workers, in the Kenyan NAP BHR develop­ment can be fairly assessed as high . Substantive Responsiveness of NAP BHR Content to Labour Rights Deficits and Challenges The Kenya NAP BHR addresses labour and workers’ rights extensively, recognising their critical role in ensuring a just and equitable society. As stated above, labour rights are one of the five thematic focus areas identified by the NAP BHR. While the NAP BHR acknowledges that Kenya has a progressive constitutional and statutory framework for the protection of labour rights, it also acknowledges the major challenges related to labour rights in business operations. To mitigate these challenges, the Kenyan NAP BHR out­lines several policy actions and thematic focus areas to strengthen labour rights in alignment with international standards. Textual analysis of the documented processes leading to­wards the NAP BHR and the NAP BHR itself highlights key concerns on labour rights. One is labour rights in the infor­mal sector. According to the NAP BHR, a significant por­tion of the Kenyan workforce, up to 83%, is employed in the informal sector of the economy, where workers often have fewer protections regarding collective bargaining or paid leave. On top of the casualisation of labour, the level of awareness of labour rights also happens to be at its low­est level among both the employers and employees in this sector. This lack of awareness of labour rights creates a conducive environment for the violation of all kinds of la­bour rights with impunity. Despite Kenya having an adequate constitutional and poli­cy framework for the protection of labour rights, a lack of effective remedies for labour-related grievances, attributed to weak enforcement mechanisms, an inadequate number of state labour inspectors, and a lack of effective opera­tional-level grievance mechanisms are some of the bottle­necks for the realisation of labour rights. For example, Arti­cle 41 of the Kenyan constitution guarantees fair labour practices, and Article 30 prohibits slavery, servitude, and forced labour, while Article 27 ensures equality and free ­dom from discrimination, including equal rights for women and men in the economic sphere. However, due to the weak enforcement of such laws, labour rights continue to be violated and abused with impunity in the private sector. To address these challenges, the NAP BHR proposes policy actions structured around the three pillars of the UNGPs: the State Duty to Protect, the Corporate Responsibility to Respect Human Rights, and Access to Remedy. Hence, the NAP BHR, among others, mandates the Kenyan govern­ment to: → Ensure continuous training for government agency work­ers involved in business promotion and regulation on human rights obligations and their mandates. → Strengthen the capacity of the labour inspection depart­ment to handle labour-related grievances. → Require businesses to conduct comprehensive and credi­ble human rights impact assessments before commenc­ing operations and continuously review them to prevent, address, and redress human rights violations. These as­sessments should involve meaningful consultation with affected groups and include gendered impacts. → Encourage recruitment agencies to provide repatriation, legal, and psychological support to migrant workers who suffer abuse abroad. → Promote the use of alternative dispute resolution mech­anisms for disputes between businesses and those harmed by their operations. → Prioritise access to legal aid for victims of business-relat­ed human rights abuses. → Sensitise businesses and affected individuals on the benefits of establishing and utilising credible operation­al-level grievance mechanisms. → Assist community-based organisations in building tech­nical capacity to monitor the human rights impacts of businesses and advocate remedies. Therefore, the extent of organised labour’s influence on the contents of the NAP BHR could be assessed as medium : → First, because the study could not establish whether the good coverage of the labour issues in the NAP BHR is a direct contribution of organised labour groups. → Second is it cannot be low since labour issues are ade­quately discussed in the NAP BHR, and it can be as­sumed that organised labour groups contributed to this coverage. Substantive Responsiveness of NAP BHR Content to Gender Inequalities and Challenges in Labour Con­texts The Kenyan NAP BHR explicitly takes into consideration gender issues, particularly women’s rights. One of the ma­jor issues discussed during NAP BHR consultations is wom­en’s rights. During stakeholder consultations for the NAP BHR, a lack of maternity leave for private-sector workers was raised as a major concern for women, despite legal provisions that guarantee this right. Widespread sexual harassment, particularly affecting women in the horticul­ture industry, was also mentioned, with underreporting likely due to fear of job loss. These problems are com­pounded by a lack of publicly available statistics disaggre­gated by sex and other vulnerabilities, hindering efforts to address discrimination, especially towards women, in the workplace. Labour and Africa’s National Action Plans on Business and Human Rights 15