Avenger of the Week | Ketty Nivyabandi, First Woman Amnesty International Secretary General

Five years ago, Ketty Nivyabandi fled from her native Burundi to Canada, seeking asylum from police violence as a leading organizer of women’s peaceful protests for democratic change in her country.

This week, the human rights advocate, poet, and journalist living in exile in Canada was named the Secretary General of Amnesty International Canada. She’s the first woman appointed Secretary General by Amnesty International.

Born in Belgium, Nivyabandi grew up in Bujumbura, Burundi and studied international relations.  Before she was exiled, she worked as a journalist and is a published French-language poet, representing her country in poetry presentations at the 2012 Summer Olympics.

During the constitutional crisis in Burundi in 2015, she organized the first women-only protest and was a founding member of the Women and Girls Movement for Peace and Security in Burundi. In a news photograph she stood alone facing a line of government armored trucks  and police, and shortly after was targeted by police and left her country. In Canada, she has testified before the House of Commons Subcommittee on International Human Rights about human rights violations in Burundi and regularly speaks on human rights, especially women's rights and the effects of conflict on women's lives. She joined the staff of the Nobel Women’s Initiative in 2017 and was a speaker at the Geneva Summit for Human Rights and Democracy in 2019.

“I believe we all hear a calling inside of us to give our life a broader dimension than our individual journeys, and I want to encourage us to listen to that voice,” said Nivyabandi.

For her courage in advocating for human rights in her home country, and for continuing that cause in exile, we salute Nivyabandi as GenderAvenger’s Avenger of the Week.

Let's hear it for Avenger of the Week Ketty Nivyabandi!

The @GenderAvenger #AvengerOfTheWeek is the first woman Secretary General of @AmnestyNow, @kettynivyabandi! “I believe we all hear a calling inside of us to give our life a broader dimension…” #GenderAvenger https://www.genderavenger.com/blog/avenger-of-the-week-ketty-nivyabandi