Community activists commit to formulating a response team to address cases of violence

“This was a wonderful forum that gave outreach workers and peer educators an opportunity to gain knowledge on violence prevention, responding to violence and human rights. With this information being cascaded to other peer educators and outreach workers we will most definitely see a drop in cases of violence, and an increase in documented cases of human rights violations. These actions will ensure key populations can access justice and access health care services” Dr. Douglas Masinde, Executive Director Tamba Pwani.

On 13-14 July 2017, KELIN conducted a two day community sensitization forum on Violence Prevention HIV, Human Rights and the Law. The forum, which was conducted in Kilifi County, is one of the activities under the PITCH (Partnership to Inspire, Transform and Connect the HIV response) grant.

The interactive forum was aimed at enhancing the participants understanding on the linkages between violence prevention, HIV and human rights; increasing support for key populations’ access to justice in the context of HIV; and strengthening the capacity of key population community in responding to cases of violence and documenting human rights violations.

The forum which was graced by 31 key populations’ representatives from Kilifi County, took participants through: Understanding violence and violence prevention; human rights, punitive laws and laws protecting key populations from violence; and implementation of health as a devolved function. This session was particularly important due to the need for CSOs to keep their county governments in check with regard to provision of health services to key populations.

At the end of the meeting, participants committed to take forward three action points with regard to prevention of violence against key populations:

  • Participants agreed to come up with a violence response plan which will be executed by a violence response team constituting peer educators and outreach workers from the organizations represented
  • Participants agreed to sensitize and train their members on violence prevention and documentation of human rights violations
  • KELIN committed to partner with the three organizations so as to translate documented cases into affidavits that can be used in future public interest litigation cases.

To contribute to the discussions on this forum, follow KELIN on our social media platforms: Twitter: @KELINkenya using these hash tags: #Justice2Health Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/kelinkenya

For more information, contact:

Ted Wandera

Program Officer, Key & Affected Populations

Kenya Legal and Ethical Issues Network on HIV/AIDS (KELIN)

4th Floor, Somak Building, Mombasa Road

Tel +254202515790; Cell +254708389870

Email: twandera@kelinkenya.org