Kenya at war with its women and children, damning report reveals

Gender Based Violence survivors and stakeholders match in Kisii town during the launch of 16 days of Gender Activism.(Sammy Omingo, Standard)

They came for blind women at night. Silently and repeatedly. In Trans Nzoia, visually impaired women told a government Technical Working of Gender-Based Violence, including Femicide, how unknown men slip into their homes at night, rape them and vanish before dawn.

Some are raising children from rape by men they do not know. Hundreds of kilometres away in Wajir, a four-year-old girl was defiled. Her tiny body ripped apart leaving intestines hanging out and dumped on the roadside.

These are not isolated horror cases of women and girls facing cruelty in a country that has normalised GBV crisis that Kenyan system continue to treat as routine crime. A new report by Technical Working Group on GBV including Femicide revealed that Kenya is living inside a relentless way against women and girls.

Presenting the findings, Task Force Chairperson Dr Nancy Baraza said violence against women, men and children in Kenya has reached alarming levels and requires urgent, coordinated action from the highest office.

According to the 2022 Kenya Demographic and Health Survey, 34 per cent of women have experienced physical violence since the age of 15.

The technical working ground found out that 77 per cent of femicide victims were killed by someone known to them, with husbands forming the largest category of perpetrators.

The report shows the majority of femicide cases are committed by young adults aged 18-35, accounting for 66 per cent of all reported cases.

According to the report, this perpetrator’s age group represents the highest risk demographic pointing to an alarming pattern of increased involvement in GBV acts among younger males. Also the findings indicate that data collected had a three per cent group of perpetrators below 18 years, showing an early onset of harmful gender norms and behaviour among boys.

The report also revealed that homes are the most dangerous places for women and girls to live in. According to the report, husbands are the most common perpetrators of Intimate Partner Violence at 40 per cent.

Women are not being killed by strangers but men who shared their beds, ate at their tables and trusted with their lives

Data shows that in 77 per cent of cases, killings were committed by a person known by the victim and that strangers accounted for 23 per cent of perpetrators.

“The home, a place of love, a place of warmth is the epicenter of femicide. Children as young as three years old, both boys and girls, are facing a severe scourge of abuse, defilement, sodomy, in the hands of people who should care for them, their own fathers,” said Dr Baraza while handing over the report to President William Ruto in State House.

Nairobi, Meru, and Nakuru have recorded high femicide cases nationally. Of the 578 cases, the counties contributing the most cases included Nairobi (54), Nakuru (43), Meru (30), and Kiambu (29).

Garissa, Lamu and Mandera did not report any case of femicide in the police records.

Coastal Counties including Kilifi, Mombasa, Lamu and Malindi were also mentioned as longstanding hotspots for child sex tourism, exploitation of adolescent girls, and trafficking networks targeting girls from poor households.

The report also showed an increase in cases of defilement reported during school openings and closures stating that children are more vulnerable during transitional periods when they are unsupervised or idle.

In areas and communities where gender norms and expectations are deeply entrenched, cases of GBV were also prevalent. The team cited cases where in Shinyalu and Mumias East where the public undress women in the market centres or towns, because of being ‘indecently’ dressed.

Public Service Motor Vehicle Operators (Matatus) and Public Service Motorcyclists were also mentioned as fertile sites of sexual harassment and assault, especially during early morning and late-night hours.

“Most school-going children use public transport creating enabling ground for GBV including femicide. In Kajiado County, boda boda riders were reported to exploit school girls, taking advantage of their reliance on motorcycle taxis transportation,” reads the report.

The team reported that boda boda riders sometimes use gifts, money, or favours to coerce or manipulate vulnerable girls into exploitative or abusive relationships leading to increased cases of teenage pregnancies and school dropouts.

Sexual harassment in learning institutions has also become rampant with the taskforce stating that grooming by teachers, hostel caretakers, or older male peers being among the common perpetrators.

Informal urban settlements which are characterized by overcrowding, insecurity, poverty, and weak policing were listed as hotspots for rape, intimate partner violence, and child abuse.

In universities and colleges, reporting of these cases is reportedly weak or biased.

According to the report, lecturers in colleges or universities blackmail lady students into submission for sexual advances in exchange for good grades in units.

According to the findings, “sex for marks” in higher institutions of learning such as colleges and universities is prevalent where young female students get victimised academically for not acceding to sexual advances from lecturers.

“If you refuse their advances and have a boyfriend and the lecturer spots or notices him, this boyfriend will also end up being harassed or victimised by the lecturer so that they can leave the girl alone. This situation may eventually end up a physical or emotional violence case or a femicide one,” said a GBV survivor.

Another surprising revelation is that cases of defilement of minors in primary and secondary schools are on the rise with teachers, support staff including school drivers being perpetrators.

Unfortunately, most of them are hardly reported as victims are either coerced into silence or victim-blamed.

Even those who survive are often subjected to re-traumatisation in their encounter in government institutions leading to most of them abandoning the cases in court.

Survivors described hostile response from police officers while reporting GBV cases, delayed medical examinations, unaffordable P3 forms, unending adjournments in courts and trauma-insensitive courtrooms.

The report also highlighted that there is no centralised database on GBV linking police and health facilities. The country doesn’t not even agree on how many women are being killed.

According to data from Africa Data Hug, there were 677 reported cases of femicide in Kenya from 2016 to 2024 with an increasing trend.

Of the total, 53 cases were reported in 2022, the cases went up to 82 in 2023 and surged further to 127 in 2024.

Integrated database

However, the data conflicts with the National Police Service data which shows that there were 535 cases of femicide in 2023 and 578 cases in 2024 with the taskforce calling for a harmonized and integrated database for data collection on GBV.

According to Baraza, persons living with disabilities are the most vulnerable and lack of disaggregated national data on GBV against person with disabilities subject them to more suffering.

The report blames weak coordination between government and non-government actors, poor funding for justice institutions, and lack of survivor support services.

Survivors struggle to access medical care, counselling, shelter and legal help. The task force also faulted the law for not recognising femicide as a distinct crime.

“Femicide is not just murder. It is the killing of a woman because she is a woman. Treating it as ordinary murder hides the real motive,” said Baraza.

Families and communities were also blamed for withdrawing serious cases like defilement and murder from the justice system and settling them informally.

Harmful cultural practices such as wife beating, child marriage and female genital mutilation continue to fuel violence. The taskforce recommended that GBV and femicide be declared a national crisis so as to trigger urgent and high-level interventions.

They also propose for formation of a special GBV and femicide police unit, establishing of a one-stop GBV recovery centers in all 47 counties and a nationwide awareness campaign led by the president.

Baraza’s team also recommended a national GBV and Femicide Response Fund with at least Sh15 billion annual allocation. They also want immediate amendment of the Penal Code to define and codify femicide as a distinct offence separate from murder or general homicide.

The other law that the team recommended is the enactment of a Citizen Obligation Act, which will require all citizens to report any cases of GBV, including domestic violence.

“The Citizen Obligation Act will ensure that if you do not report a violation, you will be held as complicit in the commission of the crime,” said Baraza.

President Ruto said the government will take decisive steps to end gender-based violence in all its forms.

Baraza also called for installation of CCTV services in premises that have Air BNB stating that they have becomes spots for femicide