It’s not every day that a Kenyan environmental activist makes it onto Time magazine’s star-studded list of the World’s 100 Most Influential People, but Phyllis Omido’s name stands prominently alongside Prince Harry, Dolly Parton, and Billie Eilish on 2021’s list.

Even US environmental activist Erin Brockovich is impressed, writing in her Time endorsement: “A single mother with no formal training discovers a deadly water contamination and takes action. Think you’ve heard this story before? Think again. This is the story of Phyllis Omido, and she is my hero."

‍Phyllis Omido is the driving force behind a landmark $12m court judgment awarded to shantytown residents who claimed they were poisoned by a lead smelter for recycling batteries.

She has been waging her David vs Goliath battle since 2009 and, much like Erin Brockovich, the road to victory has been dangerous and difficult. Phyllis Omido has been threatened by thugs, arrested, and forced into hiding for opposing the factory in Mombasa - and her campaign for environmental justice is not over yet. 

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Phyllis Omido: True Superhero

Kenya’s growing solar industry has created jobs and increased demand for lead, which is recovered by recycling car batteries in smelters. The economic boom has also created environmental and health problems, however.

The 3,000 residents of Owino Uhuru in Mombasa, Kenya started feeling ill around 2008, about a year after Kenya Metal Refineries (EPZ) opened its lead-acid battery factory nearby. Phyllis was a 30-something single mother at the time. She was also a business management graduate whose job at the factory required her to put together an environmental impact study with a team of experts.

Residents nearby were worried about factory fumes and untreated waste water spilling into streams. Their children had stomach aches and fevers. Chickens drinking the untreated water died. Within months, Phyllis learned that her own breast milk was likely making her baby sick from lead poisoning. She recommended the factory shut down but was told to keep quiet.

Unable to pay the $2,000 medical costs for her child’s treatment, Phyllis initially agreed to accept money from the company in exchange for her silence. She quit and cleaned houses to earn a living but - with the encouragement of a local pastor - Phyllis carried on gathering information.
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Superhero activist

Phyllis Omido wasn’t a natural-born activist. She dreamed about taking environmental courses at university but her mother died when Phyllis was in her teens and her guardian suggested Phyllis focus on practical skills to work in an office.

Business management courses seemed ideal, so when Phyllis discovered women near the factory were suffering an unusually high number of miscarriages and stillbirths she got organized. Phyllis accompanied illiterate parents on hospital visits to help them explain the situation to doctors. She also founded the Center for Justice, Governance, and Environmental Action (CJGEA).

Soil tests showed lead levels increased almost tenfold from 2008 to 2009, when the plant became operational, so Phyllis began testing sick children at her own expense and urged the government health center to do the same. Meanwhile, Phyllis ramped up the pressure with letter-writing campaigns and protests. 

No one, it seemed, was listening. Kenya’s National Environmental Management Authority "in fact wrote back to me and said what I was saying was fictitious and they were ready to defend it in a court of law", she told the BBC.

Threats and violence‍

While she was lobbying the government, Phyllis was harassed and threatened. In 2012, while organizing workers and residents for a protest, police charged her with holding an illegal gathering and inciting violence. She was jailed overnight, released, and later attacked by armed men on her way home one night.

The attack was just outside her home, which terrified her so much that Phyllis went into hiding for months. "I only survived because my neighbor arrived at that time. His car lights shone on the place where I had been hit and had fallen on the ground, and my son was screaming," she told journalists.

“Going up against business entities and power groups can be exceedingly dangerous,” said Marcella Favretto, a senior UN human rights advisor in Kenya, where the UN has given its support to the CJGEA.

The plant finally closed in 2014. Kenya’s senate health committee investigated and pledged to clean up the contamination, but they moved slowly. By 2015, the community had filed a class-action lawsuit against the government and factory investors. Thousands of locals joined the claim.

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Court victory

Finally, in 2020, after a decade of campaigning, Kenya’s Environment and Land Court ordered Kenya’s government and company investors to pay residents of the Owino Uhuru slums $12m in compensation for death, sickness and damages.

Despite the initial celebrations, they are still waiting. Kenya’s National Environmental Management Authority appealed the court ruling, saying their budget wasn’t large enough to pay for the clean-up. The Attorney General’s office argued the liability of compensation should be taken up by the smelting company and not the government.

Two years after the victory, the arguments were still ongoing. At least 300 children and 50 adults are believed to have lost their lives as a result of lead poisoning and, by 2022, more than 60 children were in urgent need of medical attention.

“If we do not attend to these children urgently, we might lose them. We have more than 20 adults who need urgent kidney dialysis, but they do not have money for medication,” Phyllis said.

She has lost none of her fighting spirit, however: “If they [the government] play delaying tactics in court, we will occupy those offices - because they are public offices - until this case proceeds.”

Phyllis’ center for justice, CJGEA, has expanded its work to lobby for government policy change and offers courses to teach the community about human rights, climate change, environmental governance, and activism. She also partnered with Human Rights Watch to produce a film to educate Kenyans about toxic waste and their rights under the law.

Erin Brockovich marvels at her passion and strength: “People say you can’t fight city hall; Phyllis Omido proves that not only can you fight, you can win.”