Established in 1993, the Independent Medico-Legal Unit (IMLU) is a leading non-governmental organisation in #Kenya dedicated to preventing and responding to #torture and related human rights violations.

With special consultative status at the #UN, IMLU is also a strong international advocate for improving the protection of #humanrights in #Africa. “So our vision is a society free from torture and related violations. Our mission is to prevent and respond to torture and related violations to ensure healing, justice and accountability,” says Wangechi Grace Kahuria, Executive Director at IMLU. “Healing, both of the physical and mental, and any other form of healing that a survivor will require. We are bold. This is a very high risk area, the work we do. So we do know that all the time we are on the Government’s radar. But we have to be courageous. We have to stand up and say, ‘You know what? We are the voice.'”

Over three decades of work, IMLU has supported over 6,000 survivors of torture in #Kenya. Through its documentation and litigation, IMLU has secured justice for survivors in over 300 successful legal cases. IMLU was central to the passage of Kenya’s Prevention of Torture Act and National Coroners Service Act, both in 2017. And with its capacity building, IMLU has trained hundreds of journalists, morticians, doctors and other professionals, and has human rights programmes in 14 police stations.

Following a brutal police crackdown against anti-government protests in 2023, IMLU used its forensic expertise to document 67 deaths from 296 cases of #torture and other ill-treatment. The report, ‘Death, Blood & Tears’, presented the Kenyan government – and its international partners – with evidence of a policy of torture and ill-treatment inflicted by security forces on protesters across the country.

Learn more at www.IMLU.org