• Planning a better future for women
    Jul 19, 2012
    Akello, a young Kenyan woman, was 17 when she went into labor. After two days, when she had still not delivered her baby, her grandmother borrowed enough money to take her to the nearest clinic. The nurse refused to examine her, told her to wait, and when Akello, in pain and frightened, finally complained, the nurse told her, “Next time you will think when you are enjoying sex.”
  • "Development" With Blinders at the World Bank
    Jul 12, 2012
    The World Bank's board of executive directors today agreed to fund transmission lines from southern Ethiopia to Kenya. The controversial Gibe III hydroelectric dam, which is expected to more than double Ethiopia's power generation when it comes into operation in 2014, is going to be a significant power source for the World Bank's project.
  • The Paradox of Losing Life While Giving Life in Africa
    May 25, 2012
    Giving life is a leading cause of death of women and girls in Africa. And in the last 20 years, few African countries, especially those in sub-Saharan Africa, have made enough progress in bringing down the number of maternal deaths.
  • You Can’t Correct a Wrong with a Wrong
    May 4, 2012
    On a sizzling Saturday in January, I visited the home of Dakan G., down a dusty path off the main gravel road running through Wajir, at the heart of Kenya’s North Eastern province. Dakan’s grandchildren milled around outside the tukul’s narrow entryway. Her daughter lingered in the doorway.
  • Four Years after Kenya’s Post-Election Violence, Impunity Reigns
    Dec 9, 2011
    Four years ago, 1,133 Kenyans lost their lives during two months of ethnic and political violence following the December 2007 general elections. Images of chaos and brutality in Kenya’s streets – police firing on unarmed protesters; mobs slaughtering their neighbors – shook the world. When it was all over, following an accord brokered by Kofi Annan that established of a coalition government, Kenya’s leaders promised that people responsible would be brought to justice.
  • Take mercury out of children’s hands
    Nov 17, 2011
    Governments from around the world met in Nairobi, Kenya recently to negotiate an international treaty on mercury, under the auspices of the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP). Mercury, the silvery liquid metal, known to many from old thermometers, is one of the most toxic substances on earth.
  • Regional Anti-terror Campaigns Gone Awry?
    Sep 26, 2011
    Before he was arrested last year in Uganda on terrorism charges, Al Amin Kimathi was hailed as an outspoken activist who challenged East African governments to conduct lawful counterterrorism operations.
  • Time to Go Beyond Ocampo Six
    Jun 9, 2011
    As a court of last resort, the ICC must defer to genuine national prosecutions. The Kenyan government claimed that it had already begun investigations into the post-election violence and was ready to step them up, including the cases against the Ocampo Six. But the judges rejected Kenya’s “admissibility challenge,” finding no evidence that the government was actually investigating them. A promise to investigate, the judges held, is not enough to stop existing ICC cases.
  • Many HIV/Aids patients suffer pain needlessly
    Feb 15, 2011
    Recently released global data by UNAids points to enormous progress in preventing and treating HIV. More people than ever before now live with HIV as a chronic disease, rather than dying from it, because they are getting antiretroviral treatment. Kenya is a good example. Over the past year, the number of people taking the drugs has risen by 25 per cent.
  • No More Suffering in Silence: The Human Rights Dimensions of Obstetric Fistula
    Feb 1, 2011
    Mwendwa P. was 16 when she became pregnant for the first time. When she went into labor, she did not want to go to the hospital near her town in Kenya because, as she told me, “I had heard that nurses abuse girls who get pregnant when they go to deliver.”