Rédaction Africa Links 24 with Daily Nation
Published on 2024-01-26 17:54:33
Women and feminists in Kenya are gearing up for a nationwide protest against the rising cases of femicide. The ‘Feminists March Against Femicide’ is scheduled to take place on Saturday, 27th January, in 11 counties including Nairobi, Mombasa, Kisumu, Nakuru, Eldoret, Homabay, Turkana, Kilifi, Machakos, Kisii, and Nyeri.
The march has been prompted by a series of gruesome murders of women in the country. The most recent cases include the brutal murder of Starlet Wahu, 26, in a short-term rental apartment and the dismemberment of Rita Waeni, a first-year university student, in another short-term rental apartment in Nairobi.
These cases are just the tip of the iceberg of Kenya’s growing femicide problem. In 2018, there was the murder of Sharon Otieno, a student at Rongo University, and Ivy Wangeci, a medical student, was hacked to death by a jilted boyfriend in Eldoret in 2019. Eunice Wangari was thrown from a 12-story building in Nairobi in 2020, and celebrated Olympic runner Agnes Tirop was allegedly stabbed to death by her husband in 2021.
Studies have shown that Africa has recorded the highest absolute number of female intimate partner and family-related killings, with an estimated 20,000 victims. Despite the existence of legal mechanisms to combat this crime, perpetrators of intimate partner violence and femicide crimes often go unpunished.
In response to this alarming trend, women came together in 2019 for the first feminist march against femicide in Kenya. Now, they are organizing online under the hashtag #TotalShutdownKe to demand accountability and raise awareness about the rise in femicide cases in the country.
Support for the protest has also been shown by human rights organizations, including Amnesty International, which has announced its participation in the march against femicide. Leaders and human rights organizations have expressed solidarity with victims and survivors of sexual and gender-based violence.
The government has also made commitments to address the issue, with the Gender Cabinet Secretary calling for investigations into recent acts of violence against women and warning against shaming victims of such crimes. Another government official pledged to push for stiffer penalties for perpetrators of sexual and gender-based violence, while the Deputy Speaker of the National Assembly expressed the need for law enforcement agencies to combat technology-facilitated GBV. Additionally, the Federation of Women Lawyers (Fida) Kenya has accused the National Police Service of failing to bring perpetrators of intimate partner violence and femicide to justice.
The upcoming protest aims to highlight the need for urgent action to address the growing violence against women and girls in Kenya and to ensure that perpetrators are held accountable for their crimes.
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