Edmund Rice International recently joined with five other NGOs to prepare and submit a report to the Human Rights Council.
Franciscans International, Pax Romana, the Kenyan Movement of Catholic Professionals (KMCP), the International Catholic Movement for Intellectual and Cultural Affairs and International Movement of Catholic Students, and the Marist Foundation for International Solidarity (FMSI) collaborated to produce the report, which is to be submitted as part of the Universal Periodic Review of the Human Rights situation in Kenya, scheduled to take place in Geneva in 2010.The submission focused on a range of issues:- the right to adequate housing, the right to food and safe drinking water, gender issues (the situation of single mothers and domestic violence), the right to education, the right to health (especially in regard to HIV/AIDS, peace building, the administration of justice and human rights, and conditions in prisons. Each section of the submission was accompanied by recommendations to the Government of Kenya.
Working on the draft of the submission proved to be a valuable learning experience for both the members of the ERI team and for the newly established Edmund Rice Justice and Peace group in Nairobi who were invited to be part of the exercise.
Kibera, one of Nairobi's informal settlements
The next stage of the process will be to invite the Edmund Rice Justice and Peace group in Kenya to formulate questions for the Kenyan government, based on the reports. Although NGO’s cannot take part directly in the UPR process at this next stage, (only members of government delegations can do that) it is possible to lobby sympathetic governments to ask the questions.
Finally there will be a role for the Edmund Rice Justice and Peace group in monitoring the implementation of the recommendations that eventually emerge from the UPR process.
It is hoped that the involvement of the East African Edmund Rice Network in this exercise can serve as an example of what is possible and be a source of encouragement to other provinces and regions to become involved in advocacy.
