Each year the Center for Women’s Global Leadership at Rutgers highlights sixteen women, men and organizations that standout in the fight against gender violence. Representing December 2nd, is:
(KAARI) Betty Murungi
Urgent Action Fund- Africa
Nairobi, Kenya
Founder of Rapid Response Fund
In 2001, Betty co founded and is now Director of Urgent Action Fund- Africa, which supports innovative and rapid initiatives on women’s leadership in peace building and access to justice in Africa. Betty is a lawyer and feminist who is passionate about promoting equality and citizenship of African women.
She established the fund to provide immediate support for women human rights defenders at risk. She is an advocate of the High Court of Kenya, and has been affiliated with the International Coalition for the International Criminal Court, the Truth & Reconciliation Commission in Sierra Leone, the Kenya Human Rights Commission and the East African Center for Constitutional Development, in Uganda.
[Murungi says] “My activism is motivated by the resilience and strength of African women who have endured struggles including armed conflicts, exile, disease and impoverishment. Yet through all of this, their spirit remains resilient and renews itself at every turn. They know that women’s rights are human rights.”
http://www.cwgl.rutgers.edu/16days/kit08/exhibit/murungi.html
Betty Murungi has been a human rights advocate for more than two decades. The organization which she co-founded in 2001, is listed in Wikpedia. However, While she is mentioned there, Murungi herself does not currently have a listed English page.
As a lawyer and advocate of international status, she been involved with “The International Centre for Human Rights and Democratic Development – now known as Rights & Democracy”, as established by an act of the Canadian parliament in 1988.
Gender perspective advocate for the International Criminal Court, and for the United Nations International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda.
She has received the:National honor of the Moran of the Order of the Burning Spear by President Kibaki for her work mainly with civil society and human rights issues.
Murungi is a fellow at the Harvard Law School “Human Rights Program“.
Murungi is alslo a 2005 Recipient of International Advocate for Peace by the Cardozo School of Law (Former recipients include Presidenct Clinton, Archbishop Desmond Tut,a nd Former US Ambassador Richard Holbrook.)
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