News Archive
IU McKinney Students Report Abuses in Kenya to UN Committee on the Rights of the Child
05/28/2015
Students at the Indiana University Robert H. McKinney School of Law recently reported violations of children prisoners’ rights and acts of sexual violence inflicted upon indigenous girls in Kenya to the Pre-Sessional Working Group (PWG) of the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child.
Students in the IU McKinney Health and Human Rights Clinic and the Legal Aid Centre of Eldoret (LACE) Kenya urged the committee to take up those issues with the Kenyan government when they meet in Geneva in January 2016. The 18-member committee will engage the Kenyan government in a “constructive dialogue” to ensure the latter’s compliance with its obligations under the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC). Kenya ratified the CRC on July 30, 1990.
Milkah Murugi Muriithi, LL.M. ’15, served as the country expert and main author of the two reports titled Sexual Violence against Kenya’s Indigenous Samburu Girls and Children Prisoners in Kenya. As part of their Health and Human Rights Clinic coursework, 3L Sharon Roberts wrote Treatment of children in Kenya’s criminal justice system: A case study while Adriana Figueroa, ’15, and Marie Queen, ’15, compiled interviews of 16 to 22–year-old prisoners previously conducted by LACE. The 33-page Children Prisoners report gives an account of how children were treated upon arrest and during imprisonment. The clinic and LACE provided CRC independent experts comprising the PWG with the Baseline Report on Legal Aid for Prisoners in Eldoret that LACE produced in December 2013.
Professor Fran Quigley, Health and Human Rights Clinic director, said “I am so pleased that our IU McKinney students were able to prepare such a comprehensive and insightful report to the UN committee. These reports invoked vitally important issues, and I hope and expect the IU McKinney contribution will lead to better protection for the rights of these children.”
Figueroa said of her experience: “The project exposed me to the world of international human rights. The work was truly fulfilling and a great learning experience.”
The 135-page Sexual Violence report included an investigative study, statistical analysis and recommendations by the Kenyan non-profit group Samburu Women Trust as well as a presentation titled The Dark Side of the Beading Culture in Kenya created by Muriithi and Luke Purdy, ‘15. IU McKinney’s Graduate Studies Program Manager Perfecto “Boyet” Caparas co-authored the reports.
The team submitted the twin reports ahead of the PWG’s 71st closed-door sessions scheduled for June 8-12, 2015, in Geneva. The PWG will formulate its list of issues to be discussed between the committee and the Kenyan government to fully implement the CRC provisions.
