No Peace Without Justice (NPWJ) and the Nonviolent Radical Party, Transnational and Transparty (NRPTT) warmly congratulate Hon. Dr. Linah Jebii Kilimo for her appointment by President Uhuru Kenyatta of Kenya to head the Kenyan Anti-Female Genital Mutilation Board.  In a post of such high visibility and prominence, Hon. Dr. Kilimo has an unprecedented opportunity to devote her extraordinary talents and experience to the elimination of this violation of the human rights of women and girls.

Hon. Dr. Kilimo has devoted her career to the elimination of female genital mutilation in Kenya and beyond. She has held high office, as Assistant Minister for Cooperative Development in the Kenya Government from 2008 to 2013, Minister of State for Home Affairs, Minister of Immigration in 2005 and Office of the President in 2004. During her tenure as a Member of Parliament, she was Chairperson of the Kenya Women Parliamentary Association (KEWOPA), with whom, in 2011, she pushed for the Anti FGM Bill which criminalises FGM.

The collaboration between Hon. Dr. Kilimo, then Minister of State for Home Affairs, and No Peace Without Justice dates to 2004, for the co-organization of the International Conference on FGM: Developing a political, legal and social environment to implement the Maputo Protocol. Since that time, we have continued to work together, joining efforts also at the international level to combat FGM.

Hon. Dr. Kilimo’s work in Kenya has been fundamental for the fight on FGM, through her work in the field and at the political and legislative level, and she has been instrumental in heightening political will to address the issue, serving as an outstanding model for women, girls, and activists both in Kenya and internationally. Her fight has made her a target, as when, during her 2002 electoral campaign for Marakwet East Constituency, she was challenged by her political opponents on the grounds that she had not been circumcised and so was not fit to hold public office.

We wish Hon. Dr. Kilimo all the best in this new challenge, and are fully confident that with her unwavering and steadfast dedication to the cause, the fight against FGM has gained a champion who will bring us ever closer to our common goal of once and for all eliminating this human rights violation.
 

For more information, contact Alvilda Jablonko, Coordinator of the FGM Program, on ajablonko@npwj.org or Nicola Giovannini, email: ngiovannini@npwj.org, phone: +32 2 548 39 15.