On 23 June 2022, the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights ordered the Kenyan government to pay $1.3 million to the indigenous Ogiek people as reparations for historical injustices and discriminations.
- The African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights is an international court established by members of the African Union.
- The government has also been ordered to recognise the Ogiek as an indigenous people of Kenya.
- It has to make that recognition effective including through formal recognition of the Ogiek language and the people’s cultural and religious practices.
About Ogiek community
- The Ogiek community has been eagerly waiting for this day since the Court ruled in 2017 that the Kenyan government had violated their rights as guaranteed by the African Charter of Human and Peoples’ Rights.
- The Court had ruled May 26, 2017 that the Kenyan government had violated seven different articles under the African Charter — including the rights to property, freedom from discrimination, culture, freely dispose of wealth and natural resources and development, in the case of the Ogiek.
- The Ogiek are among some of the most marginalised of all indigenous peoples and minorities in Kenya.
- Since time immemorial, they have lived in the Mau Forest in Kenya’s Rift Valley and in the forested areas around Mt Elgon, relying on these territories for food, shelter, identity and therefore their very survival.
- The groups has been “routinely subjected to arbitrary forced evictions from their ancestral land by the Kenyan government, without consultation or compensation.
- In another case, people from Tanzania’s Maasai community are also being forcefully evicted from their ancestral land to make way for a luxury game reserve for the rich.
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