Life is precarious for the approximately two million people who live in Nairobi’s informal settlements and slums. They make up half of Kenyan capital's population. Yet they are crammed into only 5 per cent of the city’s residential area and live on just 1 per cent of all the land in the city.

There is little access to clean water, toilets, health care, schools and other essential public services in these settlements and slums. People also live under the constant threat of water-borne diseases, violence and forced eviction from their homes and small businesses.

The Kenyan government has for decades failed to take the minimum steps required to respect, protect and fulfil the right to adequate housing for the urban poor, including the provision of some level of security of tenure.

Its recent commitment to upgrading slums is a positive step, but falls far short of the comprehensive measures needed to address the needs of these communities now and in the future.

The experience of Nairobi’s slum-dwellers starkly illustrates that people living in poverty not only face deprivation but are also trapped in poverty because they are excluded from the rest of society, denied a say on issues that affect their lives and threatened with violence and insecurity.

Wilter Nyabate is a member of the Soweto Forum, an organization which champions the rights of the residents of Soweto East, one of the villages found in Kibera, a vast slum in Nairobi. She says ‘Amnesty members can support us in our campaigning to ensure that the slum-dwellers are not thrown away or disregarded by the government. They should campaign so that evictions can be stopped.’

Send a letter to Kenya's President, Mwai Kibaki:

- Calling for an end to forced evictions, and the adoption of guidelines for evictions which comply with international human rights law. Until such steps have been taken, the President should impose a moratorium on mass evictions.
- Calling for the government to properly consult the communities affected by planned mass evictions, and to ensure that all those who have to be evicted are offered appropriate and affordable alternative accommodation and adequate compensation.