Main languages: Swahili, English, local languages
Main religions: Christianity (Protestant 47.4 per cent, Roman Catholic 23.3 per cent, other Christians 0.19 per cent), Islam (11 per cent), indigenous beliefs (0.10 per cent), Hindu (0.003 per cent), other religions (0.01 per cent). Source: Kenya National Bureau of Statistics (2009).
Minority and indigenous communities: Aweer (Boni), 7,620, Abasuba (139,271), Kuria (260,401), Wlilwana (16,803), Nubi (15,4630), Samburu (237,179), Taita (273,519), Taveta (20,828), Muslims 4.3 million, Luo 4.0 million, Kamba 3.9 million, Kalenjin (a collective term encompassing diverse indigenous peoples including the Kipsigis, Endorois, Tugen, Pokot and Sabaot) 4.97 million (12 per cent), Kisii 2.2 million, Meru 2.2 million, Asians, Europeans and Arabs 350,000 (1 per cent), Somalis 420,000, Ogiek 78,691 (disputed by Ogiek community groups), Maasai (841,622), Dahalo (2,398).
Kenya is a country of great ethnic, linguistic, cultural and religious diversity. Ethnic/national minorities, such as the Nubians and Somalis, are not recognized as such by the Kenyan government and have problems accessing citizenship documents. In recent years political conflict on ethnic lines has increased dramatically, exacerbated by the combination of divisive politicians and economic decline. Nevertheless, ethnic categorizations are complex and sometimes overlapping. Such linguistic minorities as the Terik, Sengwer and Suba are challenged by the near-extinction of their languages. Agriculturalists and pastoralists often have competing claims to land, and nomadic pastoralists are in ceaseless conflict with the authorities, most of whom come from farming tribes. Although the relationship has generally been one of tolerance, divisions between Christians and Muslims are of growing significance.
No ethnic grouping is numerically dominant, and while a few groups have had opportunities at political power with its associated economic benefits, the Kikuyu, who make up 22 per cent of the population, have tended to dominate politics in the post-independence era. Some groups have never held political power. Competition for power and exclusion from it on an ethnic basis has been a major source of tension in Kenya. Particularly vulnerable minorities include Muslims and nomadic pastoralists such as Somalis and Maasai.
Hunter-gatherer communities, including the Ogiek, Sengwer and Yaaku peoples, have long faced marginalisation and exclusion, including dispossession of land and forced evictions. Other groups include Aweer (Dahalo), a traditional hunter-gatherer community, numbering about 3,500 and living in the Lamu district of eastern Kenya, where they face insecurity, the threat of famine and loss of livelihood as a result of the government’s ban in the name of conservation. Most men have left the region in search of work.
Updated December 2021
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Land rights have long been an issue in Kenya, particularly affecting its minorities and indigenous peoples. However, Kenya in 2016 achieved a significant milestone in relation to implementation of its progressive 2010 Constitution – passage of the Community Land Act, which operationalizes Article 63. Article 63 of Kenya’s Constitution lays out the types of land registration available in the country, including private, public and community lands. During Kenya’s long constitutional drafting process, minority and indigenous communities fought for inclusion of Article 63, which established community land, a new category of landholding giving communities power to control land in which they share a common interest. The new law makes clear that customary land rights are equal in status to any other form of land holding.
Some estimate that as much as 68 per cent of Kenya’s land could be designated as community lands. But the law to adjudicate these lands and put them under the control of communities includes several provisions that are of concern. Moreover, the law will not truly be operational until regulations and several other steps are completed. Until these are completed, all community lands and monies derived from them are held in trust by the newly established county governments on behalf of communities. The law establishes multiple steps before communities can actually start registering lands in addition to creation of regulations, including the establishment of a jointly agreed adjudication process between the Ministry of Lands and Kenya’s 47 county governments (required within three years), the appointment of a community land registrar, and communities organizing themselves to become registered under the law. Once these steps are finalized the actual process of registering lands to be held by communities could take many years, and until such time, communities will see their lands managed by the relevant county government – or in the case of community lands that cross county boundaries, by multiple county governments at once.
The passage of the Community Land Act has been long awaited by many of Kenya’s indigenous peoples, including forest peoples such as Ogiek and Sengwer and pastoralists such as Endorois, Turkana and Maasai. Kenya’s Ogiek are a traditional hunter gatherer community whose communal lands stretch form the slopes of Mt. Elgon on the Uganda border to the highland Mau forest, one of East Africa’s most critical watersheds. For decades, Ogiek have been fighting to maintain access to their homes, hunting and gathering grounds, as well as sacred sites in the forest and to protect their lands from the exploitation that is devastating Kenya’s forest cover. Despite rulings in their favor both in domestic courts and African regional human rights bodies, Ogiek continue to experience evictions and harassment on their lands. In August 2016, dozens of families from the Mt. Elgon Ogiek community were forcibly evicted by Kenya Forest Service rangers. However, following a protracted legal case undertaken with the support of Minority Rights Group, May 2017 saw a landmark ruling by the African Court on Human and People’s Rights in favour of the Ogiek’s customary land rights. Yet despite the formation of two separate taskforces established ostensibly to resolve these issues, no meaningful action has been taken to implement the ruling. In fact, in clear contravention of its findings, Kenya Forest Service (KFS) guards undertook a campaign of mass evictions in July 2020 that saw hundreds of Ogiek homes burnt to the ground and families forcibly evicted.
Sengwer forest people living in the Embobut forest have also experienced successive waves of evictions for many years. Recent large scale projects from the World Bank and the European Union designed to protect Kenya’s natural water towers, however, have raised the stakes. In response to escalating human rights abuses against Sengwer, including the fatal shooting of a Sengwer man in a raid in January 2018, the EU announced the suspension of the programme until the government had taken meaningful action to resolve these violations. The project was formally cancelled in October 2020.
Kenya’s pastoralist communities also have been advocating for the Community Land Act as a tool to help them protect their traditional, communally held territories, especially grazing lands. The Endorois, Maasai and Turkana all have contested the taking of their lands for large scale development and conservation protects – a national reserve and ruby mining in the case of the Endorois; national parks and hydrothermal energy production in the case of the Maasai; and oil and wind power production in the case of the Turkana. The Endorois community continues to struggle to ensure implementation by the government of a 2009 decision of the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights that declared Kenya’s actions in relation to their traditional lands around Lake Bogoria a violation of Kenya’s international and domestic legal obligations. The Commission ordered reparations, consultation, return of access to lands, and benefit sharing but implementation of the decision has been painfully slow, with only incremental improvements in the situation over the years.
The Community Land Act also includes important provisions demanding gender equality and establishing non-discrimination as a critical guiding principle for the law. Indeed, final registration of community land requires consideration of the equal treatment of women throughout the process. This provision has the potential to provide important benefits for Kenya’s indigenous women who experience double discrimination. The pressures on indigenous and minority groups in Kenya often fall most heavily on women in communities that are experiencing evictions, loss of livelihoods, lack of access to services and other human rights violations. Women from indigenous and minority communities across Kenya have reported over the years that they experience unique abuses when their communities come into conflict with the state. These violations include sexual violence, gender-specific threats, use of women to bait or manipulate men in the community, destruction of women’s unique property such as household goods, loss of access to gender-specific ritual sites, loss of access to medicinal herbs, and loss of opportunity to transmit cultural knowledge.
Kenya also has a significant Somali minority population, including both Kenyan citizens of Somali descent as well as Somali refugees. The growing threat of terrorism inside Kenya from the Somalian extremist organisation, al-Shabaab, has led to less and less tolerance of Somali refugees by the Kenyan public and the Kenyan government. In 2016 in particular, changing Kenyan government policy toward Somali refugees led to major efforts to close refugee camps with Kenya and to repatriate refugees back to Somalia. The government of Kenya has repeatedly announced deadlines for closure of the largest refugee camp in the country, Dadaab, and has begun a repatriation program. The current deadline for the closure of Dadaab is May 2017, but many experts agree that the deadline is unreasonable. Prima facie status for Somali refugees – a policy that had accepted that Somalis fleeing conflict were automatically considered in need of protection within the internationally accepted definition of a refugee – was revoked in April 2016. By the end of 2016 more than 25,000 refugees had been repatriated to Somalia.
Environment
Kenya lies on the Indian Ocean in eastern Africa. It borders Somalia, South Sudan, and Ethiopia in the north, Uganda in the west, and Tanzania in the south and south-west. Lowland plains rise to central Kenya’s fertile highlands and snow-capped mountains. Much of the northern half of the country is arid and semi-arid rangelands. Kenya’s many national parks and reserves protect the country’s biodiversity and are a major attraction for international tourists.
History
Kenya gained independence from British colonial rule in 1963. Many of Kenya’s ethnic communities resisted colonial oppression throughout various periods of British rule – well known resistance movements emerged from the Maasai, Nandi, and Kikuyu communities. Colonialism in Kenya undermined the territorial integrity of most of Kenya’s ethnic groups, and solidified ethnic distinctions for the purpose of divide and rule. Land was appropriated by colonial powers through military conquest and administrative fiat, generally without community consent.
Jomo Kenyatta, the country’s first President, had been a major figure in Kenya’s independence movement and led the country until his death in 1978. From 1969 to 1991 Kenya was effectively run as a one-party state. Multiparty politics increased opportunities for mobilization on ethnic and religious lines, and politicized ethnicity has frequently served narrow groups of officeholders and elites receiving their patronage. Growing international pressure for reform led to the reintroduction of multiparty politics, culminating in presidential and parliamentary elections in December 1992. Daniel arap Moi, Kenyatta’s vice-president and President since 1978, won with 36 per cent of the vote over a divided opposition; his KANU party won a narrow majority of seats in Parliament. Multiparty politics increased opportunities for mobilization on ethnic and religious lines. The ‘ethnic card’ as a tool for voter mobilization was then difficult to remove. Politicized ethnicity has usually served narrow groups of officeholders and elites receiving their patronage.
Rampant corruption, a stalling economy, and a loss of international support fuelled resentment against Moi, and he decided not to contest 2002 elections, while at the same time Kenya’s fractured opposition united behind one candidate.
Daniel arap Moi’s 24-year rule and KANU’s four decades in power ended in December 2002 when opposition presidential candidate Mwai Kibaki, a Kikuyu, won a landslide victory over KANU rival Uhuru Kenyatta – Moi’s chosen successor and the son of independence leader Jomo Kenyatta. Kibaki, who had served as Moi’s vice president from 1978 to 1988, promised to tackle corruption, and in 2003 introduced a bill proposing an anti-corruption commission. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) resumed lending to Kenya after a three-year gap. However, in December 2003 the government granted former president Moi immunity from prosecution, and the promised anti-corruption drive had not materialized. In 2003 Kibaki’s government also launched a crackdown on independent newspapers, a move that shocked Kenyans accustomed to a relatively free media. In February 2005, diplomats claimed that under Kibaki, corruption had cost Kenya US$1 billion. The Kibaki administration has been roundly criticized for tribalism and cronyism, including accusations that Kibaki has heavily favoured his Mt Kenya region in government appointments.
2007 election crisis
Amid widespread allegations of rigging, President Kibaki and his Party of National Unity claimed victory in the closely-fought 2007 elections – an outcome vehemently disputed by the opposition Orange Democratic Movement. The fault-lines in Kenyan society were exposed, when competing political interests over-lapped with ethnic differences. President Kibaki and his close associates are Kikuyu, while his main rival Raila Odinga is a Luo. Luos and allied communities from Western Kenya have long seen themselves as being denied the leadership of the country when Odinga’s father was sidelined by Jomo Kenyatta’s administration. The post-election violence in Kenya was the worst the country had witnessed, leading to hundreds of deaths, widespread sexual violence against women and men, property destruction, and approximately 600,000 people displaced over the several weeks of conflict. Some of the worst violence and displacement took place in Nairobi’s informal settlements and in the Rift Valley, where long-standing grievances over land erupted into ethnically-targeted attacks.
Under intense international pressure, Kibaki and Odinga agreed to a power-sharing deal which kept Kibaki as President and installed Odinga as Prime Minister. Six Kenyans were charged by the International Criminal Court (ICC) in connection with crimes during the post-election violence of 2007-08, but all of the cases have either been dismissed or have collapsed No one has ever been charged domestically in Kenya for crimes committed during the 2007-08 crisis. Kenya established a Truth, Justice and Reconciliation Commission (TJRC) in 2010 to document human rights violations during the 2007-08 violence as well as throughout Kenya’s post-independence history. The TJRC issued its report in 2013, providing extensive documentation of Kenya’s long history of ethno-political conflicts and underlying disputes over land rights and marginalization of many ethnic communities.
Constitutional reform and further elections
After a many decades-long struggle for constitutional reform, Kenyans voted in a constitutional referendum in 2010 to adopt a new Constitution that ushered in significant reforms. Elections in 2013 were the first held under the new Constitution and established an entirely new system of devolved governance in Kenya, creating 47 new counties with their own governments. The winning candidates for President and Vice-President at the national level, Uhuru Kenyatta and William Ruto, had been charged by the ICC for their role in the 2007-08 post-election violence and ran for election with their cases pending at the Court. However, the cases collapsed mid-way through their terms in office, though they were not formally acquitted.
Kenyatta and Ruto ran for re-election in August 2017, facing Odinga with Kalonzo Musyoka as his running mate. Kenyatta and Ruto won, although the result was disputed by Odinga. At least 24 people were killed in protests immediately after the election results were announced.
Governance
The Republic of Kenya is a democracy operating under a reformed Constitution adopted in 2010. The Constitution established a presidential system of government at the national level, with a bi-cameral parliament consisting of the Senate and the National Assembly. The constitution also created 47 county governments, each with its own Governor and County Assembly. Powers of government are shared between the national and county levels of, with certain key service delivery functions being devolved to the county level while most power to raise revenue and set national policy remains at the national level.
The President, members of the Senate and National Assembly, Governors, and members of County Assemblies are elected for five year terms in a winner-take-all system. Kenya’s Constitution requires that no more than 2/3 of any elected or appointed government body can be of the same sex, effectively creating a quota system for women. Each county also elects one ‘women’s representative’ to the National Assembly. Certain appointed seats in Parliament also are reserved for persons with disabilities. Kenya has multiple political parties, many of which are aligned with Kenya’s larger ethnic groups. During election periods, political parties generally merge to form large alliances which consolidate the numbers necessary to win an electoral majority.
Kenya has an independent judiciary consisting of a Supreme Court, Court of Appeal, regional High Courts, as well as subordinate courts including magistrate courts, khadis courts (which regulate affairs of Kenya’s Muslim community), and military courts. Kenya’s judiciary also includes specialized tribunals for labor disputes and land and environment cases.
Kenya’s Constitution also established several independent commissions, including the Kenya National Commission on Human Rights, the National Gender and Equality Commission, the National Cohesion and Integration Commission, along with the Office of the Ombudsman and the Commission on Administrative Justice.
General
- Centre for Minority Rights and Development (CEMIRIDE)
- Indigenous Fisher Peoples Network (IFP)
- National Council of Women in Kenya
Christians
Endorois
Muslims
- Muslims for Human Rights (operates as a programme of the Kenya Human Rights Commission)
Ogiek
Pastoralist
Hunter-Gatherers
- Hunter Gatherer Forum (HUGAFO)
Publications
- Reparations at last: Land justice for Kenya’s Ogiek (2023)
- Implement Endorois Decision 276/03: Report on the impact of non-implementation of the African Commission’s Endorois decision (2022)
- Diversity: Impact on Vaccine Equity (DIVE) (2022)
- Diversity Impact on Vaccine Equity in Kenya (2022)
- Diversity: Impact on Vaccine Equity (DIVE) (2022)
- Diversity Impact on Vaccine Equity in Kenya (2022)
- Minority inclusion learning review of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Switzerland – Programmes in the Horn of Africa (2021)
- Access to Education and Health among Minority and Indigenous Communities in Kenya (2021)
- Peace or into pieces: Conflict Analysis and Mapping for Isiolo and Marsabit Counties, Kenya (2021)
- Kenya: After decades of displacement, the Ogiek community secure a landmark ruling (2020)
- Kenya: To identify discrimination, we first need to get the data – health inequalities among Somali women in Mandera County, Kenya (2020)
- Kenya: For Turkana pastoralists struggling with drought, mobile finance offers a lifeline (2020)
- State of health and education among minority and indigenous peoples in Kenya (2020)
- Defending our Future: Overcoming the Challenges of Returning the Ogiek Home (2020)
- Baseline study on sexual reproductive health rights (SRHR) in Mandera County, Kenya (2020)
- Kenya: ‘There has been no life for us since we were moved out of the forest.’ (2019)
- Kenya: ‘The impact of climate change is worsening the situation of child marriage among the Maasai.’ (2019)
- Kenya: For Turkana pastoralists, oil offers no easy solutions to poverty and drought (2019)
- Victory for Kenya’s Ogiek as African Court sets major precedent for indigenous peoples’ land rights (2017)
- Taking diversity seriously: minorities and political participation in Kenya (2013)
- Challenges at the Intersection of Gender and Ethnic Identity in Kenya (2012)
- Kenya at 50: Unrealized Rights of Minorities and Indigenous Peoples (2012)
- Landmark ruling provides major victory to Kenya’s indigenous Endorois (2010)
- African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights: Ten years on and still no justice (2008)
- Kenya six months on: A new beginning or business as usual? (2008)
- Kenya: Minorities, Indigenous Peoples and Ethnic Diversity (2005)
- Kenya’s Castaways: The Ogiek and National Development Processes (2003)
- The Asian minorities of East and Central Africa (up to 1971) (1971)
News and updates
- Six years on: Celebration mixed with concern for the Ogiek of Mau (26 May 2023)
- Oral Statement by MRG on Human Rights Situation of Minorities and Indigenous Peoples in Africa at 75th Ordinary Session of African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights (9 May 2023)
- Beyond just conservation: a history of Maasai dispossession (23 February 2023)
- We are still saying that we should not be left out: Manase Ntutu on fighting for the rights of indigenous persons with disabilities (17 January 2023)
- A model for peace in northern Kenya (11 October 2022)
- Climate-linked lake rise frustrates indigenous Endorois health volunteers (6 September 2022)
- Indigenous Ogiek health volunteers want clean water access (1 September 2022)
- One step closer: indigenous peoples’ rights in the DRC (2 August 2022)
- Empowering Kenya’s indigenous Sengwer to advocate for better healthcare and education (18 July 2022)
- Ogiek win another landmark victory in African Court (23 June 2022)
- Indigenous Ogiek in Kenya eagerly anticipate reparations judgement (22 June 2022)
- Kenyan government should respect pro-indigenous rights rulings (31 March 2022)
- Tribute: Elizabeth Ibrahim and Zephyrin Kalimba ran the good race (18 January 2022)
- Early warning mechanisms key to calming ethnic tensions (7 December 2021)
- Accurate data key to amplifying indigenous voices (30 September 2021)
- Boot camp re-energises Kenya’s indigenous activists (23 September 2021)
- Indigenous paralegals and the fight for climate justice (17 September 2021)
- ‘Network for Peace’ project improves lives of minority communities (25 August 2021)
- EVENT: Leave no one behind: An intentional call for a new social contract for indigenous peoples (4 August 2021)
- Kenya’s minority and indigenous communities missing out on education and healthcare access (6 May 2021)
- Event: Access to Education and Health among Minority and Indigenous Communities in Kenya (28 April 2021)
- Status of peace and justice for indigenous peoples of East Africa: our recommendations (25 April 2021)
- Indigenous peoples must be at the forefront when it comes to redressing violations of their rights (20 April 2021)
- Why budgeting processes are crucial for minorities and indigenous peoples in Kenya (19 February 2021)
- UPDATE: One step forward for the Ogiek as Kenyan court issues conservatory orders, stopping government’s titling process in Eastern Mau (18 December 2020)
- Tell President Kenyatta of Kenya to stop illegal handouts of Ogiek lands (10 December 2020)
- Kenya: Light at the end of the Tunnel in Marsabit (29 October 2020)
- HRC45 – MRG and OPDP (Kenya) engage in a UN panel discussion on the protection of indigenous peoples’ rights defenders (23 September 2020)
- Kenyan communities report illegal evictions during COVID-19 – CLAN press release (23 July 2020)
- Kenya Flouts African Court Judgment, Continues to Evict Ogiek in the Midst of COVID-19 Pandemic (17 July 2020)
- Tell it with song: Music to raise awareness on COVID-19 (29 June 2020)
- Defending our Future: Overcoming the Challenges of Returning the Ogiek Home (27 May 2020)
- Life on $1 a day in Kibera, Africa’s largest slum – photo report (21 May 2020)
- I am indigenous, a woman and living with a disability. COVID-19 highlights the intersectional discrimination I face daily. (21 May 2020)
- A Portrait of Power and Resistance Among One of Africa’s Last Hunter-Gatherer Populations (8 May 2020)
- Two years on, Kenya has yet to implement judgment in Ogiek case – MRG Statement (5 June 2019)
- Ogiek justice: now! (8 June 2018)
- May 2018 Minority Voices Podcast: An interview with Daniel Kobei, of Kenya’s Ogiek Peoples’ Development Programme (21 May 2018)
- UN Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples – MRG’s Submission regarding criminalisation and attacks on indigenous peoples defending their rights (16 March 2018)
- Kenyan government Task Force to implement African Court’s Ogiek judgment deeply flawed, MRG and OPDP say (13 November 2017)
- HRC36 – EMRIP: MRG’s statement on the lack of implementation of the Ogiek ruling by Kenya (20 September 2017)
- Kenya’s 2017 Election: what are political parties saying about marginalized communities? (30 May 2017)
- African Court releases unanimous decision of judges on Ogiek land case – full judgment coming soon (30 May 2017)
- Huge victory for Kenya’s Ogiek as African Court sets major precedent for indigenous peoples’ land rights (26 May 2017)
- African Court to deliver landmark judgment on Ogiek community land rights case against Kenyan government (22 May 2017)
- Indigenous women and children heavily affected by ongoing conflict in Baringo County, Kenya, says MRG (9 May 2017)
- Preventing evictions from the Mau Forest of Kenya (25 April 2017)
- Strengthening the voice of marginalized minorities in East and Central Africa (24 April 2017)
- African Commission of Human and Peoples’ Rights v Kenya (the ‘Ogiek case’) (14 November 2016)
- Kenya: Protecting the Endorois’ right to land (13 November 2016)
- MRG condemns violence against Kenya’s Ogiek, calls for full investigation (24 March 2016)
- ‘Life at the Margins’ – new story pack on multiple forms of discrimination faced by minorities and indigenous peoples (8 March 2016)
- Minority Voices Podcast – February 2016 (4 February 2016)
- Sustainable Development Goals welcome, but pledge that ‘no one will be left behind’ must now be honoured by all governments, MRG (23 September 2015)
- Say my Name – Using street theatre to address racism and discrimination (3 July 2015)
- Stop the illegal eviction of the Sengwer community, MRG urges Kenyan government (4 March 2015)
- A closer focus on Endorois women reveals strength and resilience in the face of hardship (25 February 2015)
- A real Kenyan ‘safari’ (29 January 2015)
- “Land grabbing” in Africa: An emerging legal framework highlights a lack of accountability for the UK’s role in the violation of land rights (20 January 2015)
- African Court to hear Ogiek community land rights case against the Kenyan government (26 November 2014)
- Kenyan Task Force formed to implement the 2010 Endorois ruling (29 September 2014)
- “The Endorois decision” – Four years on, the Endorois still await action by the Government of Kenya (23 September 2014)
- MRG welcomes UNESCO World Heritage Committee Resolution on Lake Bogoria in Kenya (19 June 2014)
- Rights group urges Kenyan government to stop parcelling Endorois community land without consultation (20 February 2014)
- MRG deeply concerned about attacks on Ogiek activists in Kenya and calls for immediate investigation of incidents of harassment (3 February 2014)
- The ICC at 10 Years: Crises of Cooperation, Capacity and Legitimacy (10 June 2013)
- African Court issues historic ruling protecting rights of Kenya’s Ogiek Community (20 March 2013)
- Lessons learned in community spirit – a Moldovan visits Kenya (5 March 2013)
- International rights group urges Kenyan government to ensure peaceful and fair elections (28 February 2013)
- ‘Don’t be vague, go to The Hague’ (14 February 2013)
- Alternative State of Nature: at the crossroads of economic growth and indigenous-sensitive development (5 December 2012)
- MRG condemns spate of attacks on Kenyans and calls on the government to exercise restraint to avoid escalation of violence (20 November 2012)
- MRG condemns ethnic and religious attacks in Kenya and calls on the government to address the root causes of conflicts to avoid escalation of violence (12 September 2012)
- Scramble for natural resources in East and Horn of Africa threatens minorities and indigenous peoples and fuels conflict – new global report (28 June 2012)
- Part 1: How to Skin a Porcupine (2 May 2012)
- Kenya at 50: Unrealized rights of minorities and indigenous peoples – Report (8 March 2012)
- Two years on from African Commission’s ruling, Kenya continues to drag its feet in recognising indigenous peoples’ ownership of wildlife park, MRG urges government to act (1 February 2012)
- MRG welcomes ICC ruling and calls for robust protection of minorities in Kenya (30 January 2012)
- A journey of firsts for Endorois women (17 January 2012)
- Together in the same pot (29 December 2011)
- Nubians in Kenya have right to nationality. Time to implement the African Union decision (19 October 2011)
- We are enemies of ourselves (4 May 2011)
- MRG condemns targeted attacks on Ogiek activists (3 March 2011)
- Part 2 – Maasai women speak up of abuse and violence (28 January 2011)
- Part 1 – Training, interviewing, community visits and clubbing – all in a week’s work (19 January 2011)
- Landmark ruling provides major victory to Kenya’s indigenous Endorois (26 August 2010)
- A ray of hope for minorities in Kenya referendum vote (19 August 2010)
- Illegal eviction of Ogiek indigenous community from ancestral home in Mau Forest, Kenya (28 October 2009)
- Evicted Kenyan indigenous community demands share of tourism revenue on World Responsible Tourism Day (14 November 2008)
- Indigenous peoples’ fears of displacement laid to rest (4 September 2008)
- Kenya six months on: A new beginning or business as usual? (28 August 2008)
- MRG launches new online ‘Trouble in Paradise’ campaign calling for tourism industry to respect indigenous rights in Kenya (12 August 2008)
- MRG-sponsored film wins place in Human Rights Watch Film Festival (12 June 2008)
- The Ogiek: forgotten victims of Kenya’s election violence (3 June 2008)
- Minority voices from Kenya (14 February 2008)
- MRG concerned over Kenyan violence says minorities and indigenous groups could be seriously affected (4 January 2008)
- Kenya delivers constitutional betrayal of minority and indigenous peoples (6 September 2005)
- Kenya: risk of conflict increasing (13 April 2005)
- Commission to consider Kenya pastoralist case following urgent appeal to state (8 November 2004)
- Kenyan constitutional review in crisis claim minority and indigenous groups (9 April 2004)
- Rights, representation and constitutional reform demanded by Kenya’s Muslims (15 March 2004)
- Ogiek killings highlight precarious position of Kenyan hunter-gatherer community (15 March 2004)
- Death of Professor Katama Mkangi (10 March 2004)
- The Situation of Somali Bravanese Refugees in Kenya (26 July 2001)
Active programmes
- Realizing Rights for All: tackling the structural drivers of economic, social and cultural rights deprivations facing marginalized groups (2023)
- Furthest Behind First (FBF) (2022)
- Land Body Ecologies – The impacts of environmental change on mental health (LBE) (2021)
- Supporting Human Rights Defenders in the area of land-related rights, indigenous peoples (2020)
- Ethnic Minority Defenders: Amplifying the voices of indigenous human rights defenders to advocate for the rights to health and education (2020)
Past programmes
- Diversity: Impact on Vaccine Equality (DIVE) (2021)
- Enhancing quality and universal access to indigenous peoples’ reproductive healthcare (EQUIP) (2021)
- Networks for Peace: Preventing and resolving conflicts through early warning mechanisms in Africa (2021)
- Deepening engagement: Achieving rights for Minorities and Indigenous Peoples in Africa (2020)
- From Disparity to Dignity: Realizing Indigenous & Minority Rights in Development (2020)
- Ireland Aid 3 (IA3) : Faire respecter les droits des minorités et des peuples indigènes dans le programme d’Afrique Centrale et de l’Est (2018)
- Ireland Aid 3 (IA3): Realising the rights of minorities and indigenous peoples in East and Central African Programme (2018)
- Haki za Ardhi za Jamii asili Tanzania na Kenya – Athari za mikakati ya kufungua madai mahakamani na uhalali wa kuwawezesha kisheria (2017)
- Indigenous peoples’ land rights in Tanzania and Kenya: the impact of strategic litigation and legal empowerment (2017)
- Les droits fonciers des peuples autochtones de la Tanzanie et du Kenya : l’impact des activités de renforcement des capacités juridiques et de litige stratégique (2017)
- Street Theatre (2016)
- East Africa: Preventing inter-community conflicts (2016)
- Strengthening the capacity of African minorities and indigenous peoples to advocate for the implementation of African regional and international standards (2015)
- Pastoralist Programme 2009 (2015)
- Kenya Good Governance Programme (2013)
- Endorois Welfare Council legal and capacity-building project evaluation (2011)
- Legal Cases programme (2007)
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Minority based and advocacy organisations
Sources and further reading
Minorities and indigenous peoples in
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