March 8, 2018
PBI celebrates the incredible and vital work done by Women Human Rights Defenders (WHRDs) in Honduras, Mexico and Kenya, despite their continuing struggle against oppression and human rights abuses.
From 1999-2011, Peace Brigades International provided protective accompaniment and participatory peace education to human rights defenders in Papua, Aceh, Flores, West Timor and Jakarta. A report about our past work can be read here: Our Work in Indonesia 1999-2011.
During Nepal’s civil conflict between 1996 and 2006, more than 13,000 people were killed and thousands were forcibly disappeared. Both Maoist insurgents and government forces committed human rights and humanitarian law violations including extrajudicial execution, torture, displacement, arbitrary arrests and detention. None of those responsible have yet been held to account.
In 2009/10 PBI assessed the protection needs of human rights defenders across Africa to identify countries where PBI’s methodology of international protective presence may be appropriate. The research pointed to a clear demand from defenders in Kenya. In 2011/12 we undertook an in-depth assessment to determine whether we could establish a field project in Kenya. We went to Kenya to talk to human rights defenders, to find out what their protection needs were, and whether protective accompaniment would be effective in the country.
Since the coup d’état took place in Honduras on 28 June 2009, PBI has followed with growing concern the serious deterioration of the space in which organizations, communities and human rights defenders can defend human rights in the country.
January 22, 2018
PBI is observing with deep concern the situacion in Honduras in the days following the general elections that took place on November 26th, 2017. We hereby make an urgent call to the international community to call on the Honduran government to comply with their obligation to guarantee the protection, promotion, and respect of human rights and fundamental liberties.
I was born in Kibera and I grew up in Kibera; growing up here was both a privilege and a struggle. Life is difficult in Kibera and we live in poverty here, but this place makes a woman strong and I believe that I am strong today because I grew up in Kibera.
I come from a family of four daughters. My father was never really in the picture, but I never felt the absence of a father-figure in the house; Mama has been such a role model in that sense. She would say “whatever you want to do, you can do it.” Whenever we would complain about not having a brother to help us fix household things, she would push us to learn how to do it ourselves.
