[1] Despite this setback at school she went on to university in Dar es Salaam where she graduated in 1985 and then stayed on to gain a Masters in Law in 1994.

She went on to gain a doctorate in law from the University of Warwick[2] Kijo-Bisimba was appointed as the executive director of Legal and Human Rights Center (LHRC) in 1995.

FGM was made illegal in Tanzania in 1998 but twenty years after this it was estimated that 10% of girls still suffer this treatment.

She was the first woman to make a public statement when she was objecting to the number of people killed in Zanzibar after election protests.

[7] In 2019 the Tanzanian Minister for Home Affairs Kangi Lugola noted that he could not understand why Kijo-Bisimba had not been honoured by her country.