Target: William Ruto, President of Kenya
Goal: Take action against gender-based violence and deadly dissident suppression.
A string of protests over a controversial financial law in Kenya resulted in dozens of deaths at the hands of security forces. These forces have long been accused of enforced disappearances and excessive violence targeting both organized human rights defenders and ordinary citizens. The tragedies have played out against the backdrop of a continued push to stop wide-spread gender-based violence.
Government leaders have done nothing to address either crisis. A committee commissioned by Kenya’s government laid out several recommendations to address gender violence, but not a single recommendation has been implemented. And recently, a protester speaking out against a proposed Ebola holding facility in Kenya was reportedly shot dead by police.
Sign the petition below to demand an end to the atrocities.
PETITION LETTER:
Dear President Ruto,
In just a two-month period, over 100 women were murdered across Kenya. It has taken a popular play to bring renewed attention to the fact that the broad-based recommendations by Kenya’s gender-based violence commission (including stronger legal statutes concerning femicide and the declaration of gender-based violence as a national emergency) have gone entirely unanswered. And it has taken alarming reports (from global entities like Amnesty International and the United Nations Human Rights Council) of rampant extrajudicial killings, enforced disappearances, violent protest suppression, and unwarranted imprisonment to spotlight ongoing abuses on a larger scale.
Please work on behalf of the people to bring accountability to potential crimes already committed in the government’s name and to curtail future suppression. And acknowledge the voices of the brave Kenyans who have taken a stand against gender-based violence by putting the full weight of your support and actions behind proposals to bring an end to violence against society’s most vulnerable.
Sincerely,
[Your Name Here]
Photo Credit: Jonathan John
