Police struggle to cope with rising gender violence, femicide cases

The National Police Service (NPS) has acknowledged that it is overwhelmed and ill-equipped to effectively respond to the increasing number of gender-based violence (GBV) cases, including femicide, across the country.

Senior officers outlined the difficulties facing the service, including insufficient training, a severe shortage of staff, outdated infrastructure, slow judicial processes, and chronic underfunding.

While making submissions to the Technical Working Group on GBV, including Femicide, Senior Assistant Inspector General of Police Judy Lamet highlighted how these challenges have left many survivors without support or justice, while perpetrators often go unpunished.

Lamet, who also heads the Directorate of Community Policing-Gender and Child Protection at Kenya Police Service, told the task force that capacity limitations remain a major pressing concern in the fight against GBV and femicide.

“While some officers have undergone GBV training, overall capacity remains uneven. Many police stations lack trained personnel or clear procedures for handling sensitive GBV and femicide cases,” said Lamet.

She added that the restructuring of the NPS and the gazzetment of new police stations and posts has worsened the struggle.

Lamet announced that the Inspector General designated 702 new police stations and 1,151 police posts in 2020 to assess or enhance access to justice.

She also admitted that many GBV survivors do not report violence due to victim-blaming, intimidation or lack of trust in police.

“There have been concerns about delays in filing cases, reluctance but officers to record statements, poor preservation of evidence and lack of survivor-friendly environment at police stations,” Lamet told the task force.

Lamet cited the absence of a centralized and digitized GBV case management system within the police service as a major barrier to evidence-based decision-making, case tracking, and accountability.

Without such infrastructure, she said, the system is blind to patterns of abuse, repeat offenders, and prosecution outcomes, leaving survivors stranded in a maze of inefficiency and neglect.

In her report, Lamet disclosed that between January and March 2025, the National Police Service (NPS) recorded 129 femicide cases, with March alone accounting for 44 of them.

Last year, police documented 579 femicide cases, marking a significant rise from the 534 cases in 2023 and 526 in 2022.

“The period from 2022 to 2024 saw a troubling surge in femicide cases across Kenya, sparking public outrage and renewed demands for accountability, particularly directed at the NPS,” Lamet stated.

Despite the growing wave of femicide, Lamet noted that the police are overwhelmed and ill-equipped to effectively address gender-based violence (GBV) and femicide.

Other critical gaps highlighted include a lack of survivor shelters and relocation support, poor coordination among GBV stakeholders, and weak enforcement of cybercrime laws related to image-based abuse and sextortion.

Officers handling technology-facilitated GBV, she added, also struggle with digital knowledge gaps, further weakening the response to online threats.

Amos Amuga, Director of the Legal department at NPS, proposed setting up a time frame within which GBV cases should be heard and determined upon.

“Sometimes we have good cases, well-packaged cases, but because of witness fatigue and other factors delaying hearing, we end up losing some of those cases which initially we thought we could secure a conviction,” said Amuga.

Amuga reiterated calls to declare femicide and GBV a national security issue that needs to be tackled before it mutates into another phenomenon that cannot be handled.

“There is no specific budgetary allocation for these GBV cases. We are recommending that we should have a budgetary vote for those gender desks can graduate to offices where those victims or the survivors can receive friendly reception,” said Amuga.

He admitted that most victims shy away from reporting and suffer in silence due to hostility and mocking they are subjected to by officers over the unfortunate incident.

In response to these challenges, the NPS is proposing a comprehensive reform agenda.

Among them include simplifying and digitising the P3 and post-rape care forms to ensure efficient processing and documentation.

NPS also recommended the integration of the GBV Information Management System into a police case tracking through unique identifiers to avoid duplication of cases for real-time data access and analysis.

Lamet told the task force that the country should establish an offender registry specifically for femicide and repeat GBV offenders to support investigations and public safety.

For prompt and professional handling of GBV matters at the police matters, NPS called for the establishment of ideal specialized GBV response units like gender units and child protection units at all police stations and scaling up training on trauma-informed care and crime scene management for all police officers.

Police also called for the creation of gender justice courts within each county to expedite GBV and femicide cases and promote confidential reporting channels, including anonymous hotlines and mobile-based apps accessible to the public.

To shift the focus from merely responding to incidents to preventing them, Lamet recommended that service providers, including healthcare facilities, be required to refer GBV cases to police stations to ensure victims are not left stranded.

“Service providers should understand the need for a proactive approach to ending GBV because we are constantly mopping the floor while the tap is running,’ said Lamet.

Other recommendations include increasing NPS budgetary allocations for GBV interventions, such as providing medals for victims and sanitary pads, among others.

The service also wants police officers in hospitals to enhance access, especially level 4 to referral hospitals.

“Most of the time, you find that victims go to the healthcare facilities, they are examined, and it is discovered that they've gone through an ordeal. However, there is no proper referral of these cases to the police,” Songa told the task force.

“So you find that within the police, we are being asked to go to the facilities and collect evidential material relating to these cases. And yet, within our Occurrence Book, no case has been reported,” he added.

On gender desks, police noted the available infrastructure does not provide a comfortable and private environment for victims to narrate their experiences.

“The future should be a friendly space where the children can sit and talk and even draw. Some of them do not talk, but they draw what has happened. They draw and they show this is where it happened,” said Lamet.

Victims have also reported dissatisfaction with the gender desks, where they claim to have been turned away or discouraged from pursuing formal legal channels.

Some presentations to the task force indicated that, in some stations, police officers even directed victims to seek alternative dispute resolution methods instead of following the legal process.

Additionally, the police requested the establishment of shelters to support victims of GBV and child protection units at every police station for temporary stay for the victims and survivors.

To improve access to justice, the NPS proposes the establishment of gender justice courts in each county and the deployment of police officers to key hospitals to support survivors.