HIGHLIGHTS OF RESULTS Lead poisoning on Kenya’s coast: A poor community fights back Crumpled plastic and torn cardboard litter a hill no larger than a small garden. “Where is Victor?” asks Phyllis Omido, her eyes scanning the enclosure. “Where is he?” The last time she visited, one-year-old Victor Odhiambo had just died of lead poisoning. His grave was fresh, visible in the tiny parched square locals call the “vegetable patch.” Now, the site is strewn with refuse, sweltering under coastal Kenya’s equatorial sun. Victor lies somewhere below, with the remains of other children who, like him, should still be alive and who, like him, have no grave to their name. “When the patch is full, we just start again at the beginning,” said Phyllis. “We bury the children on top of one another. Otherwise there is no room.” Phyllis is an environmental activist locked in a battle over toxic pollution that is pitting the impoverished community of Owino Uhuru, in Mombasa, against the government and big business. No one among the community’s 5,000 residents doubts why the children died: The community believes that they were poisoned by lead from an adjacent smelter and battery recycling plant that operated with impunity for more than seven years — and without the mandatory Environmental Impact Assessment — until it was finally forced to shut down in 2014. The damage inflicted during those seven years is still visible. In this poor shantytown, many of whose residents live on a dollar a day, many children are still to be tested for lead poisoning; few of those who have been are receiving medical treatment; while homes and water sources are still contaminated from the toxic dust that once floated overhead. Phyllis was once a well-paid administrator and community liaison officer in the very plant responsible for polluting Owino Uhuru. She had a car, free fuel, and enough money to care for the one-year-old son whom she was raising as a single mother. When she couldn’t find a babysitter, she brought her infant son to work, taking the occasional break to breastfeed him. Within a month, her son began to cough. He developed a fever and diarrhea and cried all the time, something he had never done previously. A government official eventually suggested he be tested for lead poisoning. The test came back positive. After her son spent a month in hospital, Phyllis called on the company to be shut down. When they refused, she quit her job, fearing her own exposure to lead from the smelter had also contaminated her child. Management did, after all, wear full protective gear when visiting the plant – unlike the workers, who were lucky to get even a pair of gloves. She knew mothers in Owino Uhuru were falling ill and miscarrying, and that children too were dying. Phyllis tried to raise the alarm but in vain: she had insufficient proof. So she tested sick children at her own expense. The results were as she predicted: all suffered from lead poisoning. Phyllis showing the community Owino Uhuru in Mombasa. © OHCHR/Axel Fassio 30 UN HUMAN RIGHTS REPORT 2017