In Kenya there have never been so many women to report femicide

On January 27, one afternoon, Kenya was confronted with an often silenced tragedy: femicide. That day, the streets of downtown Nairobi were filled with protesters. Women, above all, loud and determined, marching to the sound of cries of: “Stop killing us!”The posters bear the same messages printed in black ink: “Stop femicide in Kenya”, “There is nothing that justifies killing a woman”According to the organizers, there are more than 20,000 of them. There are also some men present, but they are not many.

A few weeks earlier, the sordid murder of two young women, Starlet Wahu and Rita Waeni, aged 26 and 20, as well as the murder of fourteen other women, were at the origin of this unprecedented protest movement. Never before have so many Kenyans taken to the streets to denounce femicides.

Between the discovery of several dismembered bodies of women found in a wild dump in July and the murder of Ugandan marathon runner Rebecca Cheptegei, burned alive by her former partner in Kenya, where they lived, on 1^Ahem September, the problem persists.

“Nothing has been done since the January demonstration.laments Muthoni Maingi, national coordinator of the End Femicide Kenya movement. The government must make the fight against femicide a national priority. According to the WHO, 47 women are murdered every week in our country. This is one of the highest rates on the continent. » In 2023, the organization Femicide Count Kenya recorded 152 femicides. A figure that could be underestimated due to unreported cases.

“A deep misogyny”

“Femicides in Kenya are an old problem. This goes back at least to the early 1990s.Muthoni Maingi believes that in 1991, 71 schoolgirls were raped and 19 murdered by boys at her school. “The problem has simply become more visible today”says the coordinator of End Femicide Kenya.

Settled in her small living room on the outskirts of Nairobi, Audrey Mugeni, an activist with the organization Femicide Count Kenya, has been working on the issue for a decade. On one corner of her desk, two books: Counting feminicide (MIT Press, untranslated), directed by American researcher Catherine D’Ignazio, and the novel On the street of the black sisters (published in French under the title Fata MorganaGlobe, 2022), by Nigerian author Chika Unigwe, about African sex workers in Belgium. “Femicides are possible thanks to certain deep structures of our society, explains Audrey Mugeni. One of them is religion, which imposes morality on women. There is also a deep misogyny and violent hatred towards women. »

“Patriarchy is a very strong component of Kenyan societyMuthoni Maingi agrees. It is a product of several eras: the dictatorship [de Daniel arap Moi, entre 1978 et 2002]colonization, Christianization… It is a long and complex construction. » For Audrey Mugeni, “All this has resulted in a definition of success that differs according to gender. For a woman, success will be having children and a husband. For a man, it will be having money and power. If a woman has power and money, it is doubtful.”

In 2018, two murders shook the country: that of Sharon Otieno, a student killed by former Migori County Governor Okoth Obado, and that of Monica Kimani, a businesswoman killed by her lover. “Instead of mourning their deaths, people said they deserved what they got. In the case of Monica Kimani, because she had money and was an independent woman, it was said that she was probably a prostitute. As for Sharon Otieno, when her alleged killer was released from pretrial detention, people applauded him.”says Audrey Mugeni.

Empty counters

In January, following the murders of Starlet Wahu and Rita Waeni, the Media Council of Kenya had to remind journalists that reporting on the two cases should be “stay objective and accurate about the facts, opposed to sensationalism and depiction of gender bias”At issue: the press description of the two victims as sex workers of questionable morality. “The description of victims as immoral people is recurrent”the activist laments.

There are texts that supposedly protect women, “But its implementation poses a problem”Audrey Mugeni continues: A few years ago, counters were set up in every police station to collect complaints from women who were victims of violence. “There are offices to receive complaints, but there are no staff. These counters are empty, and when there is someone there, it is a person who is not trained for this type of case.”laments Zaina Kombo of Amnesty International Kenya.

Another problem: some women seem to consider violence against them legitimate. A study on the health of Kenyans, published in July 2023, found that four in ten Kenyan women found it understandable for a husband to beat his partner if she refused to cook, came home too late, refused to have sex, neglected her children or burned food.

Recognizing femicides in the law

To change things, activists are calling for femicide to be recognised as a separate crime. “At the moment, all murders of women are classified as homicides.. This category, which is too broad, does not allow us to clearly say that a woman is killed for being a woman.explains Zaina Kombo.

Muthoni Maingi looks to Mexico, where femicide is enshrined in law. While the inclusion of this crime in the penal code did not reduce the number of women murdered, it did allow for greater awareness of the phenomenon in society and the establishment of public policies.

In the early 2020s, a series from Kenya, Crime and JusticeIt was the first time a femicide was depicted on screen, inspired by the murder of Sharon Otieno, ordered by the former governor of Migori County. A feature film based on the same story is currently being written. Perhaps a sign that mentalities are changing. “This is praiseworthy, but it remains an exception. Much more should be done.”, concludes Muthoni Maingi.