Kenya: Violence against women, a national crisis

A 2022 national survey also highlighted that nearly a third of Kenyan females, accounting for about nine million women, have experienced some form of physical violence.

Activists in Kenya claim that the country is experiencing increasing rates of femicide, defined as the intentional murder of women or girls primarily due to their gender, and usually by their partners or other persons they know like family members. Recent murders have sparked widespread social media outrage, spotlighting a worrying regularity in gender-based violence in this country, with calls for an end to gender-based violence.

Already in 2024, Kenyan media outlets reported the slayings of at least 14 women, according to Patricia Andago, a data journalist at media and research firm Odipo Dev. Two recent high-profile killings dominated media coverage in Kenya this year. One of the cases belonged to a 20-year-old university student Rita Waeni, found in a trash bag in a Nairobi rental apartment, and the other to the 26-year-old Starlet Wahu, found in an Airbnb apartment with several stab wounds after she went there with a man she met online.

A 2022 national survey also highlighted that nearly a third of Kenyan females, accounting for about nine million women, have experienced some form of physical violence. Reports also reveal that between 39% and 47% of Kenyan women experience gender-based violence in their lifetime. News reports document women being beaten, stabbed and raped. Nonprofit Usikimye, which runs a helpline for female survivors of violence, says it receives more than 150 calls daily, including from people who refer to a third party suffering abuse. Rights groups say while the country has strong laws and policies against gender-based violence, implementation is wanting.

The Kenyan government doesn’t collect figures on women murders. However, according to amnesty international, more than 500 women were killed in Kenya between 2016 and 2023. The majority, the human rights organization said, were women under 35, killed by intimate partners or people known to them. Reports by the organization, Femicide Count Kenya, show incidents of women killed by stabbing, beating, mutilation, strangling, and being doused in fuel and set on fire since it was founded in 2019. Most of the victims were aged between 21 and 30. The organization, which monitors killings reported in local news, recorded 58 deaths it labelled as femicides between January and October 2022 and at least 152 killings in 2023, which is the highest in the past five years.

Although many of the deaths occurred in private spaces, many women say there’s a general atmosphere of fear in the city, and that they are finding safety in measures like travelling in groups because they have little faith in the authorities. A majority of the cases of femicide were perpetrated by men who knew the women and were in intimate relationships with them, according to the data organization Africa Data Hub, indicating that many of the killings were preceded by systematic domestic violence.

Although the Kenyan Constitution safeguards citizens’ right to be protected from violence and affirms the state’s duty to protect women’s needs, activists emphasize that there is a vast schism between these legal obligations and current state practices. For many Kenyan women, these latest incidents are symptoms of a systemic problem, highlighting persistent lack of state protection, exacerbated by misogynistic attitudes justifying acts of violence by blaming women’s sexuality, morality, behavior, and appearance.

Many activists have demanded the recognition of femicide as a crime, emphasizing that the perpetrators have to receive heavier sentences. They also want the government to collect data on women while training health and law officers to proactively identify and protect vulnerable people. Although women already take numerous steps for their safety within a culture marked by constant threats of violence, even with these efforts, violence persists.

References
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/1/27/femicide-in-kenya-whats-causing-the-frequent-murders-of-women#:~:text=In%202023%2C%20the%20organisation%20said,Uncensored%20and%20Africa%20Data%20Hub.
https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2024/jan/18/femicide-in-kenya-a-national-crisis-say-rights-groups
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2024/jan/27/thousands-march-against-femicide-in-kenya-after-rise-in-killings
https://carnegieendowment.org/2024/02/12/kenyan-women-are-pushing-for-action-on-femicide.-they-have-road-map-pub-91607