After being incarcerated for murdering her partner, Ruth Kamande studied the legal system to understand her own case. Now she is fighting to reform Kenya’s laws

It is a cool, overcast morning in Nairobi, and Ruth Kamande is in front of a computer, deep in concentration. Next to her is a thick red hardback book entitled Laws of Kenya. Kamande, 30, a diminutive figure in a stripy black and white tunic dress, graduated with a University of London LLB law degree in 2024, and works with incarcerated women. Her office, a small light and airy room that she shares with about 10 others, is in Lang’ata maximum security women’s prison where she is serving a life sentence for murder.

“I used to admire lawyers very much,” she says. “It impressed me when I saw them in movies fighting big cases, but also for people in society who are marginalised. I didn’t know that one day, in very difficult and unusual circumstances, I would become one.”

Kamande, a prisoner at Lang’ata maximum-security women’s prison in Kenya, has successfully helped other incarcerated women win cases