Why I decided to front petition against boda boda menace

A day to International Women’s Day on Tuesday last week, a graphic video of a woman being sexually assaulted by boda boda riders surfaced online, spurring widespread outrage.

The Wangari Mathai Road (Former Forest Road) in Parklands area, Nairobi incident was criticised by everyone, including President Kenyatta who called the footage disheartening.

That’s when a rather quiet whatsApp group became buzzing with conversation. Something had to be done, Sheillah Magomere and her friends thought, to stop the menace. Sheillah in her early 30s, is an advocate of the high court and the founder of Legal sisters. 

“We have a group, Legal Sisters, where we discuss our operations and one of the members posted the video. I quivered as I watched and felt goose bumps. I keep saying, ‘She’s brave, she’s brave!’ I cringe at the thought that it could happen to anyone. You and me.”

Formed in March 2021, Legal Sister is an organisation that educates, and informs the society on the laws that affect them daily by analysing, simplifying, and availing such laws. 

The sexual assault incident was not an isolated case, as Sheillah recounts.  Two of her friends have suffered in the hands of motorcycle riders.  “It’s a perennial menace. If not jumping the traffic lights, it’s riding against the traffic and obstructing motorists.

Notably, there are good ones and yes bodas in most occasions make things easier for us, like in making deliveries, or rush to the airport. But what we want is for the sector to be regulated,” she says.

In less than 10 minutes after the video was shared, the group started strategising on what to do.  “We are 43 members. One of us, Jackie, suggested that we start a petition that will seek regulation of the sector. So we started by checking the existing laws and drafting the petition. Within two hours, hundreds had signed up,” says the mother of three.

So far, more than 200,000 people have appended their signatures to the petitions and legal sisters are looking at getting it to one million signatures. “We are receiving signatures from all corners of the country, a clear indication that what happened along Wangari Maathai road is not an isolated case. People are tired,” she says.

The organisation was formed to equip society with enough legal knowledge to deter from breaking laws, to acknowledge their inherent rights and to defend their rights in any given circumstance, so this was right up their array.

Sheillah says that they are hoping to be part of the drafting committee of the regulations so they can be the voice of the petitioners. Some of the laws they hope to see passed include implementation of a yearly Boda boda licence with a pre-requisite of good conduct certificate, be a member of a registered association, create an app where rogue riders can be reported and revoke licences upon involvement in any criminal activities among others.

“We believe that this will bring on safety to the vulnerable, equip riders with skills to ride safely and help them maintain and follow due process in the event of an accident,” she offers.

Prior to the unfortunate Tuesday’s event, her organisation had been focusing on children rights. “We are fairly young as we kicked operations in March last year. This is our first petition and our first statement of purpose,” she says.

Getting involved, Sheillah says gives her a sense of purpose. She says that she was brought up in a religious home where prayer was the answer to everything, including outright human injustices, something that has both pros and cons.

“I am a pastor’s child. On one hand, it’s nice because you get to learn a lot about matters spirituality but on the other hand, it’s not nice. You see an injustice and instead of calling it a crime, you christen it a sin. So you pray about it instead of following necessary legal procedures.

"I also have a friend whose parents died by road accident and were kicked out by their members of families. So cultural, religious beliefs moulded me into this person that I am today —a humanitarian,” she offers.

Where it all begun

In 2020, Sheillah was admitted as an advocate of the high court. She did her pupillage under the court of appeal and it was there that she made a devastating discovery. “I noted that most of the cases were defilement cases. I am talking about children aged below 10 years old. I would wonder, “Why do we have so many defilement cases?”

So she started a blog on children rights, breaking legal jargon into simple words that children could understand.

“I realised that it would take me a long time to reach parents and children, so I took the advocacy to social media platforms, twitter especially. Progressively, I started getting invitations to speak to children about their rights and the law.  

"I say that a child who knows their rights and the different laws, will grow into an adult who’s responsible and cognisant of consequences that come with not abiding by the law.

"When the requests kept coming, I realised that this was bigger than me and that is how I rallied other advocates to form Legal Sisters. So far, we have trained more than eight organisations and are coming up with manuals for children rights for children and parents.

"Further, we have started taking pro bono cases affecting children and strategic litigation, which is taking legal action for positive change," says the lawyer.

Some quarters have criticised their call saying that this will lead to loss of jobs.

“We are being asked, where do we expect these people (boda bodas) to earn money from? But what we are saying is that we want them to follow the set laws. If you deny another person’s rights, yours too will be curtailed,” she offers.

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