A Human Rights Lawyer

I began my career as a lawyer by providing legal advice, legal opinions and written submissions on different array of legal issues to clients - individuals, companies as well as national, regional and international institutions around human rights law. I advocated for the justiciability of economic, social and cultural rights and provided strategic legal advice to institutions and governments on the domestication of international and regional human rights frameworks into national laws, policies and institutions.

I also undertook research on the legal framework of economic, social and cultural rights of women in Africa. Typical among such issues include housing, land, inheritance and property rights, family law and access to justice. During this period, I documented best practices, case laws and test cases in these areas of law relevant to the African jurisprudence. This gave me an immeasurable opportunity to be fully familiar with the African history, culture, laws, gaps, and their related human rights issues on which I am better positioned to provide advice and support when needed. Through legal aid sessions, I provided pro bono advice and service to clients and led mediation sessions between families. In collaboration with other organizations and firms, I lobbied and advocated on women and children’s rights across the African Continent.

I have also had very interesting and successful engagements with different African governments and regional bodies such as the Economic Community of West African State (ECOWAS) and the African Union (AU), particularly, the African Commission on Human and Human Rights (ACHPR). A groundbreaking example is my close engagement with the Women’s Rights Mechanism and the Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Women in Africa. Here, I submitted oral and written policy documents and led several legal and policy related processes in support of the implementation of the African Charter on Human and Peoples Rights and the Protocol on the Rights of Women to the African Charter on Human and Peoples Rights (the Maputo Protocol).

Specifically, I facilitated initiatives with other women rights organization in Africa and abroad especially, with the Global initiative – Economic Social, Cultural Rights, USA, Initiative for Strategic Litigation in Africa (ISLA), Kenya Human Rights Commission, FIDA Kenya and the Human Rights Centre, University of Pretoria, South Africa and led the development and advocacy of the first ever ACHPR Resolution on Women’s rights to land and natural resources as well as jointly worked on the General Comment adopted by the ACHPR on Article 7(d) of the Maputo Protocol at the African Commission on Human and Peoples Rights (ACHPR).

I have worked with partners to develop different kinds of submissions and reports and presented those to the United Nations (UN) Universal Periodic Review, the Human Rights Committee, the Committee on the Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) as well as the World Bank Inspection Panel. It is worthy of mention that most of the recommendations from these submitted reports resulted into very concrete concluding observations and actions which were translated into national policies among others.