Kenya

When the Police are the Perpetrators

"I heard bullets, so I rushed out of my house,” said the woman, cradling her bandaged arm. “I was only about five meters outside when a bullet hit me in the arm, just below the elbow. My children were screaming. I saw the police kicking and beating them. Everyone was running and crying.”

The woman speaking was sitting in a circle of women in the Samburu village of Loruko, in northern Kenya.

Against the Odds

In the strongly patriarchal society of the Maasai, it's very hard for a woman to rise above her station, but Mary Simat is no ordinary woman.

The Secret Life of Beads

For outsiders, the elaborate beadwork worn by Maasai herders may seem nothing more than a colorful decoration that enlivens ceremonies and dancing. But for the Maasai themselves, the beads capture their whole world.

The Battle for Cattle

"Yantai!” shouted Jane Kamuasi from the inside of the candle-lit kitchen.

Playing outside with her brothers by the light of a small headlamp and the countless stars, Yantai heard Jane tell her to get some vegetables for the evening meal. Moments later, the wooden door to Jane’s modified mud-and-cow-dung home pushed open. Yantai’s delicate frame and bright eyes appeared through the darkness; she was carrying a handful of plum tomatoes and a shallot.

Cultures Within Cultures: When laws ignore reality

When compared to the Americas, African practice on indigenous rights protection is unguided by law. This state of affairs is largely the result of Special Rapporteur Martínez-Cobo’s famous 1984 Study of the Problem of Discrimination Against Indigenous Populations, which literally made all Africans indigenous, without any need for extra protection of any particular group. That mindset, which is shared by African leadership, long prevented any meaningful attempt at addressing the issues that specifically affect indigenous people in Africa.

	Taking on a government is expensive work.
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