My heartfelt thanks to IntLawGrrls for the opportunity to contribute this introductory post.
This month, the Committee against Torture will meet in Geneva to conduct a review of Kenya’s progress in meeting its obligations under the Convention against Torture (UNCAT). I worked with Physicians for Human Rights to submit an alternative report in April on Kenya’s efforts to comply with UNCAT. The report highlights Kenya’s inability to address torture stemming from unchecked gang activity, its failure to stop the torture of domestic violence, and its de facto acquiescence to torture in the form of female genital mutilation.
Kenya submitted a report describing its own progress and challenges faced in ending torture. Other nongovernmental organizations submitted reports about Kenya’s efforts to address the insidious, destructive problem of torture within its borders. The independent observations of NGOs are central to the UNCAT reporting process, offering alternative perspectives to the self-serving reports submitted by the states.
PHR, while largely known for its cutting-edge forensic work exposing human rights abuses, is also home to the Asylum Program. The Asylum Program is a unique model that provides direct services to asylum seekers while advocating for improved conditions in immigration detention centers and documenting human rights abuses suffered by immigrants. To document torture suffered by asylum seekers in their home countries, the Asylum Program pairs volunteer physicians and mental health experts with asylum seekers in the U.S. The medical professionals perform evaluations, prepare affidavits based on those evaluations, and submit the affidavits along with the asylum seekers’ applications, providing medical documentation to support claims of torture and abuse.
In writing the report to the Committee on behalf of PHR, I read all the medical affidavits for asylum seekers from Kenya since 2008, written by professionals affiliated with the Asylum Program. (2008 was the last time Kenya participated in the reporting process to the Committee; the Committee had been requesting a report from Kenya for each of the preceding nine years, and the country finally complied for the first time in 2008).
The affidavits make up a stark narrative of torture and ill-treatment suffered by Kenyans at the hands of the mungiki, a criminal gang that has terrorized the country with impunity for decades. Rape, genital mutilation, and beheadings characterize its violence. Despite its status as an illegal organization, Kenya has been powerless to put a stop to the mungiki’s torture and has even harmed innocent civilians in its efforts to address mungiki violence. The government allegedly formed a secret police force to kill members of the mungiki on sight. When Kenyan activists began to investigate these extrajudicial killings, the police then began targeting the activists to silence their investigations. Staff of human rights organizations faced threats and beatings from police for their work in exposing the execution-style murders of suspected mungiki members.
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