Ilaria Potipa Loonkolia
Ilaria Potipa Loonkolia is a woman human righs defender from the Samburu indigenous community of Kenya, focused on gender equality and environmental rights. She is the Co-Founder and Director of Samburu Alms of Hope, an organisation that supports women and young girls’ empowerment, as it fights against retrogressive cultural practices such as female genital mutilation (FGM), child marriages, and gender-based violence. Ilaria is also a part of the Leadership and Governance Board of the Indigenous Women Council, where she works with various indigenous women-led organisations in Kenya, highlighting the challenges they encounter.
While Kenya maintains the appearance of a country where the public space is open, specific categories of human rights defenders encounter a wide range of risks as a result of their work. These include human rights defenders and journalists working on highly sensitive corruption issues, those who document or contribute testimony on past violence (including the 2007/2008 post election violence and frequent extra-judicial killings by the police) as well as those using peaceful demonstrations as an advocacy tool.
Human rights defenders denouncing human rights violations committed by the police forces have continuously faced reprisals. Members of civil society organisations have been repeatedly arrested and subjected to ill-treatment while in detention, received threatening anonymous calls and some have undergone trials under accusations of “belonging to an illegal organisation” and “participation in an illegal protest.”
