Community organising in Kenya
The pandemic has posed incredible risks to those living in Nairobi’s densely populated urban settlements, where access to water, soap, and sanitation is unreliable, and social distancing next to impossible.
While some Kenyans can adapt to working from home, for many living in urban settlements a day away from work means a day without food on the table.
Grassroots activists have been the only ones able to advocate on behalf of Kenya’s most vulnerable communities at this moment. Working through community based organisations Feminists for Peace and Justice Movement, founded by feminist activist Editar Ochieng as part of the Coalition for Grassroots Human Rights Defenders, or within the nation-wide movement of Social Justice Centres, human rights defenders are working tirelessly to protect their communities and save lives. They are an essential element of the fight against coronavirus, and we must support them.
Police violence
Building resilient communities
Water and sanitation
Amplifying voices
Water and sanitation
Infrastructural issues
Human rights defenders in Nairobi have reported a lack of public health measures, and inadequate food and healthcare. Decades of neoliberal reform in Kenya have privatised the provision of water and entrenched levels of inequality, making appeals to ‘wash your hands’ or ‘buy sanitizers’ redundant to those less fortunate.
Between 30 and 60 people usually share a single water tap and pit latrine. According to the Social Justice Centre Working Group, four out of five residents of urban settlements lack reliable access to water and the means to purchase hand sanitisers.
Many human rights defenders have redirected their time and resources to basic health issues, such as water and sanitation shortages in their communities. Our field projects have reported increased pressure on their workload and mental health.
Kenyan Social Justice Centre organiser Gacheke Gachiki with PBI UK Director Susi Bascon
SJC Working Group
The Social Justice Centre Working Group has demanded that the government restore the water supply to all slums and clamp down on water cartels. They have asked the Ministry of Health to provide free or subsidised sanitisers, to equip health centres with testing kits, and to train more personnel and ambulances.
On top of this, our partners have argued for price controls on basic commodities, food relief, and public education programmes to prepare the public for the pandemic.
Police violence
Extra-judicial execution
Young men living in Kenya’s informal settlements are being killed en masse by members of the police, allegedly in the fight against crime and terrorism. Missing Voices reports that in 2019 police were responsible for the killing of 107 Kenyans. Prosecutions are extremely rare, resulting in total denial of justice for victims and their families. Available data indicates that since 2007, 618 people have been killed by the police or reported missing, but charges have only been brought in 26 cases.
Confusion surrounding the extent of police power through national lockdown in Kenya has led to arbitrary arrests and extortion. Court sessions have been suspended and local police stations granted increased powers. Our partners in the field have witnessed police taking bribes to release people from jail. They have called for police to adhere to the rule of law and publish guidelines for arrest and handling cases at police stations.
Police Reforms Working Group
Twenty national human rights bodies including our partners have publicly condemned the excessive use of force by the Kenyan Police Services on the 26th of March 2020 in Mombasa. Forces threw teargas, frog marched, and beat up members of the public trying to get home in time for the curfew, which was due to begin two hours later.
Civil society have condemned the assault of journalist Peter Wainaina during the operation, reminding the government that journalists are one of the essential services exempted from the curfew order.
The Police Reforms Working Group have also called on the Ministry of the Interior to include legal services in those exempted from the curfew. We have demanded that the Internal Affairs Unit of the National Police Service, the Independent Policing Oversight authority and the Kenya National Commission for Human Rights investigate all reports of excessive use of force and unlawful policing.
Kenyan paralegal Steven Kinuthia addressing Social Justice Centre in Nairobi
Building resilient communities
Alliance for Lawyers at Risk member Tom Short with Kenyan human rights defender Mama Rahma and PBI UK Director Susi Bascon
Our work
PBI have been working with two leading Social Justice Centres in Nairobi, training grassroots human rights defenders to work as paralegals in the settlements and strengthening their ability to document human rights violations through the pandemic and moving forward.
With direct support from PBI Kenya, trained human rights defenders have been developing a comprehensive database of extra-judicial killings and other violations to contribute to their investigation, prosecution and sanctioning. This database will then be used to develop context-specific strategies for change.
In February 2020 we sent a delegation from the Alliance for Lawyers at Risk to Nairobi to assess the progress of our project and discuss with Kenyan human rights defenders the possibility of further international support from the UK legal community.
Every Voice Matters
As part of the delegation we organised a conference, ‘Every Voice Matters – collaborative approaches to safety in Nairobi’s urban settlements’, in Mathare to mark the end of our collaborative 2-year project. The project was run by a collective of international and local grassroots organisations and sought to tackle impunity by bringing families of victims and activists within social justice centres, to magistrates, the Independent Police Oversight Authority (IPOA) and even members of the police.
At the invitation of PBI, the conference was attended by Dr Agnes Callamard, former UN Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial, Summary or Arbitrary Executions, who stressed the need to raise international awareness of this problem and to ensure accountability at the highest levels in order to restore trust in the rule of law.
Former UN Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial, Summary or Arbitrary Executions Agnes Callamard speaking with Kenyan human rights defenders
PBI UK Director Susi Bascon speaking to Social Justice Centre in Nairobi
Fact finding
The delegation also met with the Feminists for Peace, Rights and Justice Centre, a grassroots organisation in Kibera settlement, to discuss the issue of gender and sexual based violence within the Nairobi urban settlements, and to find out how PBI could support the work of Social Justice Centres and human rights defenders on this issue.
This gave an insight in the network of Women Human Rights Toolkit Organisers, a network of Women Human Rights Defenders from different settlements founded and supported by PBI Kenya and PBI UK.
Dr Agnes Callamard
Incredible work is being done by activists and civil society groups which have sprung up within the settlements: places of extreme poverty and neglect (and where the risk to life is likely to greatly increase as a result of the spread of COVID-19 in the settlements). Dr Callamard said:
“It is remarkable that people have found in their environment the seeds for a bigger story… it’s a story about our common humanity, and it’s a story for social justice.”
However, bringing an end to these crimes and ensuring accountability for them will not be achieved through the work of these activists alone. It is crucial that the international community plays its role by shining a spotlight on the issue and exerting political and legal pressure wherever possible:
“It is only through international solidarity, through fighting back against the inertia and the complicity that we will be able to attack the regime of impunity that appears to be characterising the killings of men in particular in urban settlements.”
Agnes Callamard with Steven Kinuthia
Amplifying voices
As part of our awareness-raising campaign in support of community activists in Kenya we have produced two short films about the Social Justice movement.
The Stand Against Sexual Violence tells the story of feminist campaigners working in Nairobi to protect women and girls.
Ghetto Justice focuses on the epidemic of police violence in the city, and the vital work toolkit organisers are carrying out to prevent it.