Anne Wambui Ireri
Anne Wambui Ireri is a Kenyan lawyer and gender-justice strategist who has spent nearly two decades advancing women’s rights through courtrooms, legislatures, and community halls. Since 2018 she has been Executive Director of the Federation of Women Lawyers–Kenya (FIDA-Kenya), the country’s oldest and largest women’s-rights legal aid organization. Ireri oversees a team of 75 advocates and 500 pro-bono volunteers who provide free representation to more than 10,000 survivors of gender-based violence each year and run legal-literacy clinics in 47 counties.
Under her leadership FIDA-Kenya filed precedent-setting cases on the two-thirds gender principle, maternity protection for domestic workers, and digital-sex-crime enforcement. She steered the 2023 public-interest petition that compelled Parliament to enact the Protection Against Domestic Violence (Amendment) Act, broadening safeguards for economic abuse and cyber-harassment. Ireri also co-chairs the national Gender-Based Violence Prevention and Response Steering Committee, aligning government, civil-society, and donor efforts toward a survivor-centered strategy.
A graduate of the University of Nairobi (LL.B.) and the University of Essex (LL.M. in International Human Rights Law), she previously managed equality programmes at Equality Now Africa and led advocacy for the Kenyan chapter of the Solidarity for African Women’s Rights Coalition. Honors include Business Daily’s Top 40 Under 40 Women (2020) and the 2024 Law Society of Kenya Human Rights Defender Award. Passionate about mentorship, Ireri lectures part-time at Riara Law School and runs the “Future Female Advocates” fellowship, nurturing the next generation of public-interest litigators.