Kenya‘s Flora Terah comes to York

In an event co-sponsored by the Harriet Tubman Institute, Kenya’s Flora Terah will speak on “The Politics of Personal Violence” at Osgoode Hall Law School on Thursday, March 3, 2011, beginning at 12:30. This is a lead-up event to International Women’s Day in this International Year for People of African Descent.

On September 7th, 2007, Kenyan parliamentary candidate Flora Igoki Terah was abducted and tortured by a group of men. She missed taking part in the December 2007 election, but the hardest blow came the following year when her 19-year-old only son was murdered, his death brushed aside by the authorities.

Flora Terah’s case is not an isolated incident – 153 cases of electoral violence against women candidates were reported to Nairobi’s Education Centre for Women in Democracy leading up to the 2007 elections.

Terah has since founded Terah Against Terror – an organization for victims of electoral violence, and works with the Centre for Multiparty Democracy to strengthen the democratic process in Kenya. Flora Terah plans to run for parliament again in the 2012 Kenyan elections.

For more information about the event, click here.

For the event poster, see the attachment below.