Africans receive human rights rewards
2001-01-16 06:41
Nairobi, Kenya - Ndungi Githuku has lost count of the times he has been jailed in the past eight years for protesting against police brutality in Kenya, an activity that earned him one of this year's four annual Reebok human rights awards.
He called the $50 000 award "an embarrassment" for his East
African nation and said he was accepting it on behalf of all those
who suffer human rights abuse there.
"I wouldn't want to focus it on myself as it is an award for all of us who are in the struggle, for all of us who are oppressed," said
Githuku, a 27-year old Kenyan artist and poet.
"It has come here this time, and it also came here last year," he
added. "This shows our country's human rights record is not
improving since we continue to get these awards."
Since he first joined mothers of political prisoners in an
all-night vigil in 1991, Githuku says he has been a regular target
for police beatings. Kenya's criminal justice system, like those of
many African nations, is noted for lack of adequate legal
representation for many of those charged with crimes and for prison
overcrowding and routine abuse of those convicted.
Reebok, the number two US maker of athletic shoes, each year recognises four people 30 years old or younger for their efforts to promote human rights.
Kodjo Djissenou of Togo also received an award for his efforts to
combat sexual harassment of schoolgirls in his West African nation
and to make people aware of the growing traffic in children to
neighbouring countries.
Githuku and Djissenou will join two American recipients in Boston
on 21 March to receive the awards, which Reebok stipulates must be
donated to human rights organisations of their choice.
Djissenou, a 24-year-old journalist who grew up in orphanages, said his award would be used to combat sexual abuse in schools and against the trafficking of children, many of whom are sold by impoverished parents to dealers who sell them as household help.
He said that through La Confiance (Trust), a non-governmental
organisation he set up, he tries to educate girls about their right
not to be abused by their teachers.
"Our task is been complicated by the fact that there is no law in Togo against child abuse and sexual harassment," he said,
explaining that his group and others are trying to get draft
legislation introduced in the national assembly to revise the penal
code.
La Confiance has set up what Djissenou calls a "rapid action network" through which girls can give information about alleged harassment anonymously because they fear, and often suffer, reprisals from teachers if they complain.
- SAPA